
Class 



Book 



M 



-z. 



noia 



GopightN 



COPYHIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Johnson Scries of English Classics. 

GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Edited by 
Prof. O. C. Edwards. 

BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION. Edited by Dr. 
James M. Garnett. 

TENNYSON'S PRINCESS. Edited by Dr. C. W. Kent. 

MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ON MILTON AND ADDISON. 
Edited by Dr. C. Alphonso Smith. 

POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. Edited by Professors F. E. 
Shoup and Isaac Ball. 

SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH. Edited by Dr. J. B. 
Henneman. 

MILTON'S L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS, and 
LYCIDAS. Edited by Prof. Benjamin Sledd. 

ADDISON'S SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. 
Edited by Prof. Lancelot M. Harris. 

SHAKESPEARE'S MERCHANT OF VENICE. Edited by 
Dr. Robert Sharp. 

COOPER'S LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Edited by 
Prof. Edwin Mims. 

GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARNER. Edited by Prof. 
W. L. Weber. 

( hunks to BE Announced. 




c 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 



Johnson's English Classics 



MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS 



ON 



Milton and Addison 



Edited for School Use 

by 

C. ALPHONSO SMITH, A. M., Ph. D. 

Professor of English in the Louisiana State University, 
Baton Rouge, La. 



t£ 



RICHMOND, VA. 

B. F. Johnson Publishing Company 

1901 



TMP LIBRARY OF 

C< 
Twt Cor.es Received 

OCT, 19 1901 

COPVHIQHT ENTRY 

CLASS (X XXa N 

/ Cf 3 6 

copv a 



3S2I 



■ \&s 



Copyright, 1901, 
By C. ALPHONSO SMITH 



Alt Rights Reserved, 



GENERAL PREFACE. 



One of the distinctive marks of the education of 
to-day is the training derived from the reading and 
study of good literature. In the past few years the 
teaching of English in this country has been greatly 
improved through the fact that in every section the 
same carefully selected set of classic works has been 
assigned for school study, admission to college being 
based upon examination on the same. It follows that 
schools making use of these selected texts instead of 
the somewhat antiquated manual, are not merely 
giving their pupils English training in books chosen 
for that purpose by a conference representing leading 
English teachers from all the sections, but are prepar- 
ing their students to enter the English department of 
any of our colleges or universities. The advantage 
of using such a series instead of drilling pupils in a 
few books, however excellent, picked out by the indi- 
vidual instructor is too obvious to require discussion. 
In a shifting country like our own no teacher knows 
[ 7 ] 



8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

where his pupils may be residing twelve months later, 
but if he uses a standard set of text-books, he may be 
quite certain that, no matter where the lot of his pupils 
be cast, they will be prepared to enter college, or per- 
haps some other school, with a minimum loss of time. 
This advantage alone should render the teacher de- 
sirous of carrying his pupils through the standard 
texts ; when, in addition, the recommendations of the 
Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in 
the Southern States are duly weighed, the use of such 
a series becomes almost necessary. 

Acting upon the recommendations of this Associa- 
tion, the publishers and editors of Johnson's English 
Classics have endeavored to furnish a set of the 
required books for study and reading which, without 
being planned upon a sectional basis, shall answer 
specially to Southern needs. They have felt that, in 
spite of the large number of similar series already 
published, some of them excellent, a new series would 
be justified by the fact that it would give an impetus to 
scholarly work on the part of Southern teachers, and 
also that it would be edited with full recognition of 
the fact that Southern pupils are rarely able to consult 
large libraries, and hence find much of the editorial 
matter normally furnished them foreign to their needs. 
But while the volumes will be lightened of all super- 



GENERAL PREFACE. 9 

fluous material, they will each exhibit the following 
essential features of a text-book on English literature : 

Each volume will have a short general introduction 
giving a brief sketch of the author's life, an estimate 
of his work and his' position in literature, and a criti- 
cism of the text to be studied. 

Annotation will be moderately full, stress being laid 
upon literary and historical rather than upon philo- 
logical points. Where the volume is designed for 
careful study and examination, annotation will be 
fuller than in the case of texts designed for reading 
merely. 

A word remains to be said with regard to the order 
in which the series should be used in high schools and 
academies. No iron-clad rules can profitably be laid 
down in the premises, but it is suggested that since all 
the books for special study cannot well be used in the 
last year of high-school work, such volumes as have 
been previously studied be reviewed in that year. 
Volumes designed for reading merely may be assigned 
to different periods of, or may be confined to, the 
second, third and fourth high-school years, or to the 
last two years, according to the teacher's discretion, 
and such volumes may also be used for private reading 
alone. In fact, such private reading seems to be the 
best use to make of a book like Last of the Mohicans, 



IO JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

which is a classic eminently fit to be placed in a pupil's 
hands, but rather unwieldy for class purposes. The 
teacher will naturally follow up such private reading 
by an examination, or the assignment of an essay, to 
test the thoroughness of the pupil's reading, and he 
will see the fitness of making his examination on the 
books for study far more thorough than on the books 
for reading. 

In conclusion, it may be stated that should it seem 
advisable the series will be enlarged to include other 
texts. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION: 

I. Sketch of Macaulay's Life 13-17 

II. Estimate of His Work, 17-24 

III. Analysis of His Style 24-32 

IV. Remarks on the Essay on Milton, . . 32-34 
V. Remarks on the Essay on Addison, . . . 35-36 

TEXTS: 

Essay on Milton, 39-113 

Essay on Addison 117-233 

NOTES, 237-265 



[ 11 1 



INTRODUCTION. 



I. Sketch of Macaulay's Life. 1 

"A recent traveller in Australia," says. Mr. Morley, 
"informs us that the three books which he found on 
every squatter's shelf, and which at last he knew be- 

1 The only authoritative hiography of Macaulay is that 
written by his nephew, George Otto Trevelyan, M. P., en- 
titled The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (1876). Criti- 
cal estimates and special editions of Macaulay are too numer- 
ous to mention. The most exhaustive analysis of his style 
is made by Minto in his Manual of English Prose Literature 
(3d ed., 1886). Prof. J. Scott Clark in his Study of English 
Prose Writers (1898) gives a fairly complete critical bibliog- 
raphy and a well arranged critical symposium, both of which 
the teacher will do well to consult. The best short sketch 
of Macaulay and his work is by J. Cotter Morison in the 
English Men of Letters series. Of single critical estimates 
I place first that by Mr. Morley; it appeared in the April 
number of the Fortnightly Review for 1876, but is most ac- 
cessible in Brewster's Studies in Structure and Style (1896). 
A recent readable article is "The Vitality of Macaulay," by 
H. D. Sedgwick, Jr., in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 
1899. Among standard books of reference, Mark Patti- 
son's Macaulay in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Leslie 
Stephen's sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography 
may be especially commended. 

[ i3 ] 



I 4 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

fore he crossed the threshold that he should be sure 
to find, were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Macaulay's 
Essays. This," adds Mr. Morley, "is only an illus- 
tration of a feeling about Macaulay that has been 
almost universal among the English-speaking peo- 
ples." This phenomenal popularity — for it is con- 
ceded that Macaulay is the most widely read English 
prose-writer of the century — is the more remarkable 
inasmuch as Macaulay attempted no form of fiction, 
but confined himself to critical essays, biographical 
sketches, and a fragmentary History of England, the 
five volumes of which compass the story of only sev- 
enteen comparatively uneventful years. And these 
labors fell chiefly in the intervals of an active and 
illustrious political career. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley 
Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800, on the anni- 
versary, as he liked to say, of the battle of Agin- 
court. His father, Zachary Macaulay, was of Scotch 
descent, and a determined advocate of the English 
abolition movement. The son's maturity of mind and 
powers of expression showed themselves at an early 
age. He was always clumsy in his movements, and 
could neither swim, nor row, nor drive, nor skate, 
nor shoot ; but at seven he wrote a creditable Com- 
pendium of Universal History. When his mother 
insisted that he must study without the solace of 
bread and butter, the little fellow replied — in the 
very balance of later years — "Yes, mamma, industry 
shall be my bread and attention my butter." 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age 
of eighteen, and rose at once to distinction by his 
breadth of information, his readiness in debate, and 
his rare conversational powers ; but his distaste for 
mathematics, and the consequent lack of rigid dis- 
cipline in scientific methods, made against him in 
later years. His father's affairs had become involved, 
and in 1824 Macaulay took pupils. A year later he 
was elected a Fellow, and in 1825, on the publication 
of his Essay on Milton, he woke to find himself 
famous. 

His friend Praed describes him at this time as fol- 
lows : "There came up a short manly figure, mar- 
vellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand 
in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had 
little to boast ; but in faces where there is an expres- 
sion of great power, or of great good humor, or both, 
you do not regret its absence." His life was destined 
now to be one of incessant activity and of uniform 
success. The struggle for recognition made by his 
contemporaries, Wordsworth, Browning, Tennyson, 
Carlyle and Thackeray, was not to be his. He learned 
to labor, but was not required to wait. 

At the age of thirty he entered Parliament as a 
Whig, and by his able advocacy of the Reform Bill 
won an unviable reputation as an orator. In 1834, 
accompanied by his sister Hannah, who afterwards 
became Lady Trevelyan, he sailed for India, having 
been appointed legal adviser to the Supreme Coun- 
cil, a position which yielded him an annual income 



16 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

of $50,000. In 1838 he was back in England, intend- 
ing to devote himself to "A History of England, from 
the accession of King James II. down to a time which 
is within the memory of men still living'" ; but being 
elected member for Edinburgh and appointed shortly 
afterward Secretary of War in the Whig Ministry of 
Lord Melbourne, his great undertaking was indefi- 
nitely postponed. 

When Lord Melbourne's Ministry fell in 1841, 
Macaulay continued his contributions to the Edin- 
burgh Review, and published in 1842, with many 
misgivings, his only volume of poems. The Lays of 
Ancient Rome. "There shall be no puffing," Macau- 
lay had said ; but the little volume needed no puffing. 
It was greeted with a paean of praise, the description 
of Virginia's death being pronounced the most pa- 
thetic passage that Macaulay had written. 

Meeting with political defeat in 1848, Macaulay 
retired from politics, and brought out the first two 
volumes of his History of England. The sale was 
unparalleled. Of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
2,250 copies had been disposed of during the first 
year; of Macaulay's History, 13,000 copies were sold 
in four months. In the United States the sales were 
greater still. "We have already sold," wrote Harper 
and Brothers in 1849, "40,000 copies. No work of 
any kind has ever so completely taken our whole 
country by storm." In 1841 Macaulay had written, 
"I shall not be satisfied unless I shall produce some- 
thing which shall for a few days supersede the last 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies." He 
lived to see his daring hope amply realized. The 
succeeding volumes (the fifth and last was edited by 
Lady Trevelyan in 1861) more than doubled the sales 
of the first two. 

Macaulay's health had already begun to fail, but he 
worked resolutely at his History, and continued to 
write occasional articles for the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica. In 1857 he was made a Peer — Baron Macaulay 
of Rothlev. Foreign honors had poured in upon him 
as soon as the first two volumes of his History ap- 
peared ; but his weakness was growing upon him. 
"I have thought several times of late," he writes, 
"that the last scene of the play was approaching. I 
should wish to act it simply, but with fortitude and 
gentleness united." On the morning of December 
28, 1859 — the year that witnessed the passing of 
Thomas De Quimcey and Washington Irving — he 
dictated a letter, enclosing $100 for a poor curate, 
and that afternoon wqs found dead in his easy 
chair with Thackeray's last story unopened before 
him. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, the 
stone that bears his inscription resting at the feet of 
Addison 

II. Estimate of His Work. 

It is not often that a great writer is as well aware 
of his own limitations as was Macaulay. When he 
was asked in 1838 to write a review of Sir Walter 



18 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Scott's works, he declined in the following terms: 
"I have written several things on historical, political, 
and moral questions, of which, on the fullest recon- 
sideration, I am not ashamed, and by which I should 
be willing to be estimated ; but I have never written 
a page of criticism on poetry, or the fine arts, which 
I would not burn if I had the power. ... I have 
a strong and acute enjoyment of works of the 
imagination ; but I have never habituated myself to 
dissect them. Perhaps I enjoy them the more keenly 
for that very reason. Such books as Lessing's 
Laococm, such passages as the criticism on Hamlet 
in Wilhelm Meister, fill me with wonder and de- 
spair." 

Though Macaulay has here underestimated his 
critical powers, it is undoubtedly true that he was a 
better historian than critic. In the range and accu- 
racy of his historical information, as well as in the 
ease with which he could marshal his vast learning 
for the particular purpose in hand, he far surpassed 
all of his contemporaries. But even if we accept his 
own valuation of his critical work, not one entire 
essay would have to be sacrificed; for Maeaulay's 
Essays, whatever be their titles, belong more to the 
domain of history than to "criticism on poetry or the 
fine arts." The Essays on Milton and Addison are 
no exceptions. They are more narrative than analytic. 
They illustrate how Maeaulay's knowledge of English 
history, his teeming information on all topics bearing 
upon the periods treated, constantly led him to the 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

correlation of historical facts and the interpretation 
of political movements rather than to a philosophic 
appraisal of the poetry and prose that Milton and 
Addison wrote. 

On all topics he was more positive than original. 
He did not force a readjustment of ideals in litera- 
ture. He did not enrich men's conceptions of the 
meaning- of history. He did not in any respect im- 
press a broader or saner view of life. In speculative 
range, in metaphysical subtlety, in nicety of discrimi- 
nation, he fell far behind Coleridge and De Quincey. 
He did not stir the hearts of men with a new message, 
as did Carlyle ; nor was he Carlyle's equal in appre- 
ciating the significance of the Germanic element in 
modern history. It requires but a cursory review of 
Macaulay's works to realize that, though he knew 
minutely the history and literature of Greece and 
Rome, he undervalued the results of German scholar- 
ship and ignored the contributions of the northern 
nations to the progress of civilization. In compar- 
ing his workmanship with that of Newman, or 
Matthew Arnold, or Ruskin, we feel instinctively 
that their familiarity with the subjective side of 
life gives them a certain advantage over Macaulay ; 
their sensibility to purely aesthetic effects is finer, 
and their appraisement of men and things is more 
spiritual. 

And yet Emerson's sneer is unwarranted : "The 
brilliant Macaulay, who expresses the tone of the 
English governing classes of the day, explicitly 



2o JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

teaches that good means good to eat, good to wear, 
material commodity." Had Macaulay written noth- 
ing but the concluding part of the Essay on Bacon, 
at which Emerson here girds, the charge would be 
partly, but only partly, borne out ; in the light of 
his entire work the charge is utterly disproved. 
Macaulay believed in material good, and was justly 
proud of England's material progress, but he was no 
more a Utilitarian than he was a Transcendentalist. 
At the age of twenty-nine he defined the school of 
Utilitarians as "smatterers, whose attainments just 
suffice to elevate them from the insignificance of 
dunces to the dignity of bores," and from that defini- 
tion he never receded. 

Do men who adopt no higher estimates than those 
of the counter and the market place record expe- 
riences like the following? "I walked far into Here- 
fordshire, and read, while walking, the last five books 
of the Iliad, with deep interest and many tears. I 
*vas afraid to be seen crying by the parties of walkers 
that met me as I came back, — crying for Achilles cut- 
ting off his hair, crying for Priam rolling on the 
ground in the courtyard of his house ; mere imaginary 
beings, creatures of an old ballad maker who died 
near three thousand years ago." 

Macaulay's most characteristic defect lies not so 
much in faulty logic or insufficient knowledge as in 
his handling of rhetorical effects. He sometimes 
spells better than he accentuates. After the closest 
scrutiny of a half century the specialists have not 



INTRODUCTION. 



21 



often caught him napping in regard to his facts, 1 but 
even uncritical readers feel that he sometimes im- 
pales truth en the point of an epigram. When 
Macaulay is tip-toeing to a climax or couching his 
lance for an effective antithesis, his eyes are fixed 
straight ahead ; those lateral views and minor shades 
that alone insure the symmetry and sobriety of truth 
pass overlooked or unheeded. 

It is, for example, a mannerism with Macaulay to 
represent his particular topic as unique or superlative 
in some quality. An author cannot long pursue this 
method without running into exaggeration or self- 
contradiction, and Macaulay does both. Thus he 
says that Barere "approached nearer than any person 
mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, 

1 As to detected errors, the Essay on Hastings has suffered 
most. Sir James Stephen has corrected many of the details 
of Macaulay's Nuncomar episodes; Sir John Strachey has 
picked numerous flaws in the account of the Rohilla War ; 
and Barwell Impey, son of the Chief Justice whom Macaulay 
pillories as "rich, quiet, and infamous," proves conclusively 
in his Memoirs of Sir Elijah Impey that injustice has been 
done his father. The Essay on Bacon has been dethroned 
by Spedding's monumental work, An Account of the Life 
and Times of Bacon, in which Macaulay's treatment is shown 
to be defective and misleading. In the case of William 
Penn (History, Chap. VIII,), Macaulay's mistake, says Dr. 
Charles Kendall. Adams (Manual of Historical Literature, 
3d ed., 1888, p. 496), "appears to have arisen from a con- 
founding of two different persons." See W. E. Forster's 
William Penn and Thomas B. Macaulay (1849) and Johq 
Paget's New Examen (1861), 



22 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

to the idea of consummate and universal depravity." 
Again, "All the other chiefs of parties had some good 
qualities, and Barere had none." Can language go 
farther? Macaulay's can: "Barere had not a single 
virtue, nor even the semblance of one." He declares 
in one passage that Dr. Johnson's review of Jenyns's 
Inquiry Into the Nature and Origin of Evil "was the 
very best thing that he ever wrote," but says further 
on in the same essay that "The Lives of the Poets 
are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works." 
i Macaulay is not only given to sweeping assertions, 
but he writes more as an advocate than as a judge. 
"His prejudices," says Alexander H. Stephens, "were 
sometimes strong and extreme, but they were honest." 
The debater and Whig champion was so strong within 
him that he goes out of his way to seek and to 
challenge an opponent. The "harvest of a quiet eye" 
was not his. He must have his particular aversion. 
He loves to write under the stimulus of opposition ; 
and this controversial temper, while it added force 
and point to his thinking, deprived it of the more con- 
vincing qualities of impartiality and personal detach- 
ment. Even when the topics which he treats are not 
in themselves controversial, Macaulay will lead or 
force the discussion into controversial channels that 
he may find expression for his copious supply of ar- 
gument, precedent, sarcasm, and invective. 

His greatest charm lies in his narrative power. He 
is incapable of being dull or prosy. In his Essays, 
Poems, and History he marshals his events with such 



INTRODUCTION. 



23 



a mastery of the facts and such a dexterity in the use 
of details that the reader's attention is both absorbed 
and stimulated. Descriptions are never suffered to 
become tedious ; they are so interwoven with the 
movement of the story that it is difficult to tell where 
description cuds and narration begins. Like some 
vast inland river his narrative moves amid scenes 
as rich and varied as those of nature herself, and 
bears on its bosom argosies from every time and 
clime. 

Unlike the novelist, the historian may not construct 
his own plot and lead his narrative to an artistic and 
foreordained conclusion. He may select and com- 
bine, but not create. He is thus in large measure de- 
prived of that heightening of interest which the nov- 
elist secures by means of suspense ; for the crises in 
the historian's story are imposed upon him from with- 
out. But Macaulay replaces this loss by creating a 
new interest in the progress and process of the nar- 
rative. Instead of projecting the reader's attention 
on the denouement proper, he traces the causes lead- 
ing to the denouement; he portrays the motives of 
the actors ; he pictures the scene of the action ; he 
details the incidents that retard or accelerate the final 
issue ; and he irradiates the whole with such a wealth 
of spectacular imagery and apposite illustration that 
history is not only reenacted before us, but interest 
is centered more in the masterly disposition of the 
materials employed than in the results to which they 
converge. Biography, fiction, anecdote, poetry, satire. 



24 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

argument, heraldry, and mythology are all drawn 
upon ; but so thoroughly is this mass of learning 
aerated by the tact of the rhetorician that the reader 
loses all sense of heaviness in the mere zest of re- 
cipiency. Essays and history thus written consti- 
tute, if not a liberal education, at least a university 
extension course, in themselves. And it is to this 
wide range of topics, together with his pictorial man- 
ner of presentation, that Macaulay owes his abiding 
popularity. 

III. Analysis of His Style. 

"The style is of the man," said Buffon; but of 
Macaulay he might have said with more accuracy, 
"The style is the man." Macaulay 's nature was es- 
sentially simple ; there was nothing complex or in- 
volved in his character, and nothing nebulous in his 
opinions. He never learned the art of shading of 
even of understatement. Carlyle, on seeing the great 
historian's face in repose, remarked, "Well, any one 
can see that you are an honest, good sort of fellow, 
made out of oat meal." This simplicity of character, 
together with a native energy of intellect, finds ex- 
pression in a style of unequaled clearness. Indeed, 
Macaulay's style is more than clear ; it is vivid. In 
him clearness is touched by enthusiasm, an enthu- 
siasm that differentiates his style at once from the 
equally clear style of a Euclid or a Blackstone. Viv- 
idness, then, is the dominant quality of Macaulay's 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

style, and this quality he secures chiefly by his skillful 
handling- of — 

1. Details, 

2. Illustrations, 

3. Balance and antithesis, 

4. Short sentences in amplification of a general state- 

ment, and 

5. Paragraph structure. 

The illustrations that follow are purposely taken 
from other writings of Macaulay than the two Essays 
included in this volume. Every interested reader 
reads concentrically as regards topics treated ; but to 
read concentrically in the matter of style marks a 
higher reach of literary attainment and demands 
keener powers of discrimination. Hence the illustra- 
tions given below are intended to quicken the stu- 
dent's perception of stylistic differences by furnish- 
ing him with a nucleus for the further analysis of 
the stylistic effects observable in the two Essays that 
follow. 

1. Details. 

No English writer surpasses Macaulay in the real- 
istic distribution of details. De Foe is his equal ; but 
De Foe's graphic minutice are invented, while Macau- 
lay's are drawn usually from his prodigious stores of 
reading. He is not content, for example, to follow 
other historians, and say, "Charles II. died February 



26 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

6, 1685." He pictures the scene with the minute cir- 
cumstantiality of an eye witness : 

"The morning light began to peep through the windows 
of Whitehall ; and Charles desired the attendants to pull 
aside the curtains, that he might have one more look at the 
day. He remarked that it was time to wind up a clock which 
stood near his bed. These little circumstances were long 
remembered because they proved beyond dispute that, when 
he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full pos- 
session of his faculties. He apologized to those who had 
stood round him all night for the trouble which he had 
caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time 
dying ; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was 
the last glimpse of the exquisite urbanity, so often found 
potent to charm away the resentment of a justly incensed 
nation. Soon after dawn the speech of the dying man failed. 
Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had re- 
paired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When 
the prayer for the King was read, loud groans and sobs 
showed how deeply his people felt for him. At noon on 
Friday, the sixth of February, he passed away without a 
struggle." — History of England. 

He does not talk about the life and scenery of 
India, but makes the glittering panorama pass in de- 
tail before us : 

"India and its inhabitants were not to him [Hastings], 
as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but 
a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the 
strange vegetation of the palrii and the cocoa-tree, the rice- 
field, the tank, the huge trees, older than the Mogul empire, 
under which the village crowds assemble, the thatched roof 
of the peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the mosque where 
the imaum prays with his face to Mecca, the drums, and 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

banners, and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, 
the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descend- 
ing the steps to the river-side, the black faces, the long 
beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing 
robes, the spears and the silver maces, the elephants with 
their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, 
and the close litter of the noble lady, all these things were 
to him as the objects amidst which his own life had been 
passed, as the objects which lay on the road between Beacons- 
field and St. James's Street." — Essay on Warren Hastings. 

2. Illustrations. 

Macaulay ransacks all literature for apt illustra- 
tions and historical parallels : 

"The people of India, when we subdued them, were ten 
times as numerous as the Americans whom the Spaniards 
vanquished, and were, at the same time, quite as highly civ- 
ilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities 
larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings 
more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. 
They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of 
Barcelona or Cadiz, vice-roys whose splendor far surpassed 
that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long 
trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great 
Captain." — Essay on Lord Clive. 

"Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as 
wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin 
verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made dis- 
coveries in science which would have added to the renown 
of Galileo." — History of England. 

"Those parts of his [Boswell's] book which, considered 
abstractly, are most utterly worthless, are delightful when 
we read them as illustrations of the character of the writer, 



2 g JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Bad in themselves, they are good dramatically, like the non- 
sense of Justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, 
or the misplaced consonants of Fluellen." — Essay on Samuel 
Johnson. 

3. Balance and antithesis. 

Macaulay frequently employs the balanced struc- 
ture without antithesis, as in the phrases describing 
India (pp. 26, 27) and in the following clauses: 

"The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary 
before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great 
struggle was over; that there was entire union between the 
throne and the Parliament ; that England, long dependent 
and degraded, was again a power of the first rank ; that the 
ancient laws by which the prerogative was bounded would 
thenceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself, and 
would be followed out to all their consequences; that the 
executive administration would be conducted in conformity 
with the sense of the representatives of the nation ; and that 
no reform, which the two Houses should, after mature de- 
liberation, propose, would be obstinately withstood by the 
sovereign. The Declaration of Right, though it made noth- 
ing law which had not been law before, contained the germ 
of the law which gave religious freedom to the Dissenter, of 
the law which secured the independence of the judges, of 
the law which limited the duration of Parliaments, of the 
la-w which placed the liberty of the press under the protec- 
tion o-f juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, 
of the law which abolished the sacramental test, of the law 
which relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities," 
etc. — History of England. 

But he rarely employs antithesis without balance. 
There is no organic connection between the two, bal- 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

ance being a term applied to parallelism of structure, 
while antithesis relates solely to opposition or con- 
trast of thought. When Shakespeare {Henry V., III., 
1, 3-6) makes the King say, 

" In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility: 
But, when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger," 

he gives a perfect illustration of the antithesis be- 
tween duty in peace and duty in war; but there is no 
attempt at balanced structure. Macaulay would have 
pitted the two opposing ideas against each other in 
balanced forms of expression. Indeed, there is hardly 
a page of Macaulay that does not contain some kind 
of antithetic balance : 

"To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the 
Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim 
of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what 
he requires when he continues to be a man. The aim of the 
Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. 
The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our 
vulgar wants. The forme* aim was noble ; but the latter 
was attainable. Plato drew a good bow, ... he aimed 
at the stars; his arrows struck nothing. . . . Bacon 
fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on earth . . . 
and hit it in the white."— Essay on Bacon. 

"In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his 
character, in his very person, there was a strange union of 
opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and 
admire. But in every one of those eminent advantages which 
he possessed over others, there was mingled something of 



3 c JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, 
ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and impoverished 
by a series of crimes and follies, which had attained a scan- 
dalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died 
poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon 
the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers ; 
yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally 
a generous and tender heart; but his temper was wayward 
and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, 
and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets 
mimicked. Distinguished at once by the strength and by the 
weakness of his intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor 
lord, and a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man re- 
quired, the firmest and the most judicious training. But, 
capriciously as nature had dealt with him, the relative to 
whom the office of forming his character was intrusted was 
more capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of rage 
to paroxysms of fondness. At one time she stifled him with 
her caresses, at another time she insulted his deformity. He 
came into the world, and the world treated him as his mother 
treated him — sometimes with kindness, sometimes with sever- 
ity, never with justice. It indulged him without discrimina- 
tion, and punished him without discrimination." — Essay on 
Lord Byron. 

4. Short sentences in amplification of a general state- 
ment. 
Macanlay's sentences are shorter than those of most 
other prose-writers, he and Dickens using on an 
average only ahont twenty-three words per sentence. 
P>nt Macanlay has a habit of reinforcing a general 
statement by a rapid fire of sentences shorter than 
twenty-three words. These sentences frequently have 
some word or phrase in common, the repetition serv- 



INTRODUCTION. 



31 



ing to add both force to the thought and facility to 
the reading: 

"France united at that time almost every species of ascen- 
dency. Her military glory was at its height. She had van- 
guished mighty coalitions. She had dictated treaties. She 
had subjugated great cities and provinces. She had forced 
the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had 
summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her 
footstool. Her authority was supreme in all matters of good 
breeding, from a duel to a minuet." — History of England. 

"That these practices were common we admit. But they 
were common just as all wickedness to which there is a 
strong temptation always was and always will be common. 
They were common just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery 
have always been common. They were common, not be- 
cause people did not know what was right, but because peo- 
ple liked to do what was wrong. They were common though 
prohibited by law. They were common though condemned 
by public opinion. They were common because in that age 
law and public opinion had not sufficient force to restrain the 
greediness of powerful and unprincipled magistrates. They 
were common, as every crime will be common, when the gain 
to which it leads is great and the chance of punishment 
small." — History of England. 

"A hundred years more, and we have at length reached 
the beginning of a happier period. Our civil and religious 
liberties had, indeed, been bought with a fearful price. But 
they had been bought. The price had been paid. The last 
battle had been fought on British ground. The last black 
scaffold had been set up on Tower Hill. The evil, days 
were over." — Speech, March 21, 1849. 

5. Paragraph structure. 

Macaulay was the first English writer to appre- 
ciate the full value of paragraph structure. His par- 



32 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

agraphs are models of orderliness, far surpassing 
Carlyle's in coherence and De Quincey's in unity. 
Indeed, the paragraph is with Macaulay the true unit 
of composition as the sentence was with classical 
and medieval writers. He does not always state the 
subject of his paragraph in the opening sentence, but 
frequently leads np to it consecutively or, by a sudden 
change in the thought, flashes it upon us by con- 
trast. In the length of his paragraphs Macaulay 
avoids monotony by a studied alternation between 
long and short or groups of long and groups of short. 
The average length in the Essays is about nine sen- 
tences per paragraph. 

Paragraphs are too long to be quoted in illustra- 
tion ; but the student should tabulate on a second read- 
ing of the two Essays all the paragraph topics, noting 
especially (a) whether the topic is definitely stated, 
and, if so, in what part of the paragraph it occurs, or 
(b) whether the topic is distributed through the para- 
graph and left to be formally stated by the reader. 

IV. Remarks on the "Essay on Mtlton." 1 

The publication of this Essay in 1825 marked 
Macaulay 's entrance upon a literary life. So great 
was its popularity that, as Trevelyan tells us, "The 

1 The standard edition of Milton's Poetical Works is by 
David Masson, 3 vols. (1874). Corson's Introduction to 
the Prose and Poetical Works of John Milton ( 1800) com- 
prises all the autobiographical passages that Milton wrote, 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

family breakfast-table in Bloomsbury was covered 
with cards of invitation to dinner from every quarter 
of London" ; but it was never a favorite with Macau- 
lay. "The criticism on Milton," he said eighteen 
years later, "which was written when the author was 
just from college, contains scarcely a paragraph 
such as his matured judgment approves, and re- 
mains overloaded with faulty and ungraceful orna- 
ment." 

Matthew Arnold finds fault with Macaulay's pane- 
gyric on Milton's "sedate and majestic patience" ; 
Frederic Harrison protests against the portrayal of 
Charles II. as "a cruel idol propitiated by the best 
blood of England's children." Others complain of 
Macaulay's omissions. He does not mention Milton's 
Ode on the Nativity, which Hallam calls "the most 
beautiful poem in the English language," or Ly- 
cidas, which Mark Pattison considers "the high-water 
mark of English Poesy and of Milton's own produc- 
tion." 

Macaulay, however, was not writing an exhaustive 

arranged as far as possible in chronological order. The life 
of Milton has been written by Dr. Johnson in his Lives of 
the Poets; by Garnett, in the Great Writers series ; by Patti- 
son, in the English Men of Letters series; and by Stopford 
Brooke, in the Student's Library series. The latest and 
some of the best criticism (1900) is to be found in two books 
on Milton, respectively by W. P. Trent and Walter Raleigh. 
See also Arnold's A French Criticism on Milton (in Mixed 
Essays). A well selected bibliography of works on Milton 
may be found in Clark's Study of English Prose Writers. 



34 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

criticism of Milton's separate works. He was at- 
tempting the far more difficult task of bringing about 
a readjustment of views in regard to Milton himself. 
Macaulay believed that the private character and still 
more the public services of Milton had never been 
adequately appraised. Hence more than a third of 
the Essay is devoted to a defence of that "faith which 
he so sternly kept with his country and with his 
fame." 

It must be remembered that Johnson's Life of Mil- 
ton was at this time the only book about Milton that 
anybody read. Johnson was an unbending Tory, and 
omitted no opportunity to discredit Milton's motives 
or to misinterpret his actions. Johnson had declared 
that "Milton never spared any asperity of reproach 
or brutality of insolence" ; that "his political notions 
were those of an acrimonious and surly republican" ; 
that "it is to be suspected that his predominant desire 
was to destroy rather than to establish" ; that "he felt 
not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to au- 
thority" ; and that "he thought woman made only for 
obedience, and man for rebellion." 

It was Macaulay's aim to place Milton's character 
and services in their true light, to show him as "the 
devoted and eloquent champion" of popular liberty, 
a Whig before the days of Whigs, and to counteract 
the sentimental Jacobitism that Walter Scott's novels 
were fostering. It is only when read in this light 
that the true significance of the Essay becomes ap- 
parent. 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

V. Remarks on the "Essay on Addison." 1 
The Essay on Addison appeared in the Edinburgh 
Review July, 1843, and represents Macaulay in the 
maturity of his powers. It is more minutely bio- 
graphical than the Essay on Milton, and covers a 
period of English history with which Macaulay was 
peculiarly familiar. "Macaulay's youth," says Tre- 
velyan, "was nourished upon Pope, and Bolingbroke, 
and Atterbury, and De Foe. . . . He knew every 
pamphlet which had been put forth by Swift, or 
Steele, or Addison, as well as Tories of 1790 knew 
their Burke, or Radicals of 1820 knew their Cor- 
bett. . . . His diary shows him to have spent 
more than one summer afternoon 'walking in the 
portico, and reading pamphlets of Queen Anne's 
time.' " 

Addison's collected works (Hurd's edition) are pub- 
lished in Bohn's Standard Library. J. R. Green's Essays of 
Joseph Addison in the Golden Treasury series is a well 
chosen and well introduced body of selections. For analysis 
of Addison's style and bibliography of critical works, see 
Clark's Study of English Prose Writers. Minto's analysis 
in his Manual of English Prose Literature is thorough, but 
misleading in its insistence on Addison's "malice." Thack- 
eray's sketch in English Humorists is delightfully sympa- 
thetic. Courthope's Addison in the English Men of Letters 
series gives a trustworthy statement of Addison's influence 
on his times, but emphasizes unduly his "irony." Johnson's 
Life of Addison has more of the author's characteristic ex- 
cellencies and fewer of his characteristic defects than his 
Life of Milton, 



36 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

But the reader of this Essay should bear in mind 
that Addison has lost ground sinee Macaulay wrote. 
Gosse is undoubtedly right when he says (History 
of Eighteenth Century Literature) that, while Steele's 
fame has been steadily growing, ''the exaggerated 
reputation of Addison has been declining" ; and that 
"The time has probably gone by when either Addi- 
son or Steele could be placed at the summit of the 
literary life of their time. Swift and Pope, each in 
his own way, distinctly surpassed them." 

Macaulay considered this Essay one of his best. 
"I own," he says, "that I am partial to it" ; but Miss 
Aikin's Life of Addison, which was the immediate 
occasion of the Essay, he characterized as "dull, shal- 
low, and inaccurate." In a letter to Napier, just be- 
fore the publication of this Essay, Macaulay had said 
of Miss Aikin's work : "I am truly vexed to find Miss 
Aikin's book so very bad that it is impossible for us, 
v with due regard to our own character, to praise it. 
LA.11 that I can do is to speak civilly of her writings 
generally, and to express regret that she should have 
been nodding. I have found, I will venture to say, 
not less than forty gross blunders as to matters of 
fact in the first volume. Of these I may, perhaps, 
point out eight or ten as courteously as the case will 
bear. Yet it goes much against my feelings to cen- 
sure any woman, even with the greatest lenity. I 
shall not again undertake to review any lady's book 
till I know how it is executed." 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



[ 37 I 



Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, AUGUST, iSsj.] 



Joamiis Miltoni* Angli, dc Doctrina Christiana libri duo 
posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled 
from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton, 
translated from the Original by Charles R. Sumner, 
M. A., etc., etc.: 1825. 5 

TOWARD the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, 
deputy keeper of the state-papers, in the course 
of his researches among the presses of his office, met 
with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found 
corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by 10 
Milton while he filled the office of Secretary, and 
several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the 
Rye-house Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an 
envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant.*- 
On examination, the large manuscript proved to be 15 
the long lost essay on the doctrines of Christianity, 
which, according to Wood and Toland, a Milton fin- 
ished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac 
Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same 
political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is 20 

a Words marked thus ( a ) are annotated. 
[ 39 ] 



4 o JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he 
may have fallen under the suspicions of the Govern- 
ment during that persecution of the Whigs which fol- 
lowed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and 
5 that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, 
this work may have been brought to the office in 
which it has been found. But whatever the ad- 
ventures of the manuscript may have been, no 
doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic of the great 

10 poet. 

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his majesty 
to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted him- 
self of his task in a manner honorable to his talents 
and to his character. His version is not indeed very 

15 easy or elegant ; but it is entitled to the praise of clear- 
ness and fidelity. His notes abound with interesting 
quotations, and have the rare merit of really elucidat- 
ing the text. The preface is evidently the work of a 
sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious 

20 opinions, and tolerant toward those of others. 

The book itself will not add much to the fame of 
Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, 
though not exactly in the style of the prize essays of 
Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imita- 

25 tion of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none 
of the ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the 
diction of our academical Pharisees. The author does 
not attempt to polish and brighten his composition 
into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not, 

30 in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refine- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 41 

ments. The nature of his subject compelled him to 
use many words 

" That would have made Quintilian a stare and gasp." 

But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if 
Latin were his mother-tongue ; and, where he is least 5 
happy, his failure seems to rise from the carelessness 
of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. 
We may apply to him what Denham a with great fe- 
licity says of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not 
the clothes, of the ancients. lc 

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces 
of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated 
from the influence of authority, and devoted to the 
search of truth. Milton professes to form his system 
from the Bible alone; and his digest of Scriptural I5 
texts is certainly among the best that have appeared. 
But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in 
his citations. 

Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows 
seemed to have excited considerable amazement, par- 2 o 
ticularly his Arianism, a and his theory on the sub- 
ject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that 
any person could have read the Paradise Lost without 
suspecting him of the former ; nor do we think that 
any reader acquainted with the history of his life 25 
ought to be much startled at the latter. The opinions 
which he has expressed respecting the nature of the 
Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of 
the Sabbath,* might, we think, have caused more just 
surprise. 3 o 



42 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

But we will not go into the discussion of these 
points. The book, were it far more orthodox or far 
more heretical than it is, would not much edify or 
corrupt the present generation. The men of our time 
5 are not to be converted or perverted by quartos. A 
few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio 
Populi 3 - to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. 
The name of its author, and the remarkable circum- 
stances attending its publication, will secure to it a 
10 certain degree of attention. For a month or two it 
will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing- 
room, and a few columns in every magazine ; and it 
will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play- 
bills, be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcom- 
15 ing novelties. 

We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the inter- 
est, transient as it may be, which this work has ex- 
cited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to 
preach on the life and miracles of a saint till they have 
20 awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors by 
exhibiting some relic of him — a thread of his gar- 
ment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. On 
the same principle, we intend to take advantage of 
the late interesting discovery, and, while this memo- 
25 rial of a great and good man is still in the hands of 
all, to say something of his moral and intellectual 
qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest 
of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the 
present, we turn for a short time from the topics of 
30 the day to commemorate, in all love and reverence, 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 43 

the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the 
statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English lit- 
erature, the champion and the martyr of English lib- 
erty. 

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it 5 
is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the 
general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has 
been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. 
His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not 
been silenced. There are many critics, and some of 10 
great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol 
the poems and to decry the poet. The works, they 
acknowledge, considered in themselves, may be classed 
among the noblest productions of the human mind. 
But they will not allow the author to rank with those 15 
great men who, born in the infancy of civilization, 
supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruc- 
tion, and, though destitute of models themselves, be- 
queathed to posterity models which defy imitation. 
Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors 20 
created ; he lived in an enlightened age ; he received 
a finished education ; and we must therefore, if we 
would form a just estimate of his powers, make large 
deductions in consideration of these advantages. 

We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as 25 
the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had 
to struggle with more unfavorable circumstances than 
Milton. He doubted, as he has himself owned, 
whether he had not been born "an age too late."* 
For this notion Johnson has thought fit to make him 3Q 



44 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

the butt of much clumsy ridicule. The poet, we be- 
lieve, understood the nature of his art better than the 
critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no 
advantage from the civilization which surrounded 
5 him, or from the learning which he had acquired ; 
and he looked back with something like regret to the 
ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions. 

We think that, a as civilization advances, poetry al- 
most necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fer- 
10 vently admire those great works of imagination which 
have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them 
the more because they have appeared in dark ages. 
On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and 
splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in 
15 a civilized age. We cannot understand why those who 
believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, 
that the earliest poets are generally the best, should 
wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely 
the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a cor- 
20 responding uniformity in the cause. 

The fact is, that common observers reason from the 
progress of the experimental sciences to that of the 
imitative arts. The improvement of the former is 
gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting ma- 
ss terials, ages more in separating and combining them. 
Even when a system has been formed, there is still 
something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every gen- 
eration enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to 
it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented 
30 by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pur- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 45 

suits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great 
disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled 
to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual 
powers, speedily surpass them in actual attainments. 
Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's a little dia- 5 
logues on political economy could teach Montague or 
Walpole a many lessons in finance. Any intelligent 
man may now, by resolutely applying himself for a 
few years to mathematics, learn more than the great 
Newton knew after half a century of study and medi- 10 
tation. 

But it is not thus with music, with painting, or 
with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The 
progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with 
better objects of imitation. It may indeed improve 15 
the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical 
operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the 
painter. But language, the machine of the poet, is 
best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, 
like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. 20 
They advance from particular images to general 
terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened so- 
ciety is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people 
is poetical. 

This change in the language of men is partly the 25 
cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change 
in the nature of their intellectual operations, of a 
change by which science gains and poetry loses. Gen- 
eralization is necessary to the advancement of knowl- 
edge ; but particularity is indispensable to the ere- 30 



46 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

ations of the imagination. In proportion as men 
know more and think more, they look less at individ- 
uals and more at classes. They therefore make better 
theories and worse poems. They give us vague 
5 phrases instead of images, and personified qualities 
instead of men. They may be better able to analyze 
human nature than their predecessors. But analysis 
is not the business of the poet. His office is to por- 
tray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, 

iolike Shaftesbury ; a he may refer all human actions to 
self-interest, like Helvetius; a or he may never think 
about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects 
will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, 
than the notions which a painter may have conceived 

*5 respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of 
the blood, will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the 
blushes of his Aurora. If Shakespeare had written a 
book on the motives of human actions, it is by no 
means certain that it would have been a good one. 

20 It is extremely improbable that it would have con- 

* tained half so much able reasoning on the subject as 
is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. a But could 
Mandeville have created an Iago? Well as he knew 
how to resolve characters into their elements, would 

25 he have been able to combine those elements in such 
a manner as to make up a man — a real, living, in- 
dividual man? 

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy 
poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if 

30 anything which gives so much pleasure ought to be 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 47 

called unsoundness. By poetry we mean not all writ- 
ing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our 
definition excludes many metrical compositions which, 
on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By 
poetry we mean the art of employing words in such 5 
a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagina- 
tion, the art of doing by means of words what the 
painter does by means of colors. Thus the greatest 
of poets has described it, in lines universally admired 
for the vigor and felicity of their diction, and still 10 
more valuable on account of the just notion which 
they convey of the art in which he excelled : 

"As imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 15 

A local habitation and a name." a 

These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which he 
ascribes to the poet — a fine frenzy, doubtless, but 
still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; 
but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are 20 
just ; but the premises are false. After the first sup- 
positions have been made, everything ought to be 
consistent ; but those first suppositions require a de- 
gree of credulity which almost amounts to a partial 
and temporary derangement of the intellect. Hence 25 
of all people children are the most imaginative. They 
abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. 
Every image which is strongly presented to their 
mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. 



48 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever 
affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is affected 
by the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows 
that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there 

5 are no wolves in England. Yet, in spite of her knowl- 
edge, she believes ; she weeps ; she trembles ; she 
dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel 
the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the 
despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. 

10 In a rude state of society, men are children with a 
greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a 
state of society that we may expect to find the poetical 
temperament in its highest perfection. In an en- 
lightened age there will be much intelligence, much 

15 science, much philosophy, abundance of just classifi- 
cation and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and elo- 
quence, abundance of verses, and even of good ones ; 
but little poetry. Men will judge and compare; but 
they will not create. They will talk about the old 

20 poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree 
enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to con- 
ceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder 
ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plentitude of be- 
lief. The Greek rhapsodists, a according to Plato, 

25 could scarce recite Homer without falling into con- 
vulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping- 
knife while he shouts his death-song. The power 
which the ancient bards of Wales and Germany ex- 
ercised over their auditors seems to modern readers 

30 almost miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 49 

civilized community, and most rare among those who 
participate most in its improvements. They linger 
longest among the peasantry. 

Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, 
as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of 5 
the body. And, as the magic lantern acts best in a 
dark room, poetry effects its purpose most completely 
in a dark age. As the light of knowledge breaks in 
upon its exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty be- 
come more and more definite, and the shades of prob- IO 
ability more and more distinct, the hues and linea- 
ments of the phantoms which the poet calls up grow 
fainter and fainter. We cannot unite a the incom- 
patible advantages of reality and deception, the clear 
discernment of truth and the exquisite enjoyment of 15 
fiction. 

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, 
aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little 
child. He must take to pieces the whole web of his 
mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge 20 
which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title 
to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance 
to him. His difficulties will be proportioned to his 
proficiency in the pursuits which are fashionable 
among his contemporaries ; and that proficiency will 25 
in general be proportioned to the vigor and activity 
of his mind. And it is well if, after all his sacri- 
fices and exertions, his works do not resemble a lisp- 
ing man or a modern ruin. We have seen in our 
own time a great talents, intense labor, and long medi- 3U 



50 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

tation employed in this struggle against the spirit of 
the age, and employed, we will not say absolutely in 
vain, but with dubious success and feeble applause. 
If these reasonings be just, no poet a has ever tri- 
5 umphed over greater difficulties than Milton. He re- 
ceived a learned education : he was a profound and 
elegant classical scholar : he had studied all the mys- 
teries of rabbinical literature: he was intimately ac- 
quainted with every language in modern Europe from 

10 which either pleasure or information was then to be 
derived. He was perhaps the only poet of later times 
who has been distinguished by the excellence of his 
Latin verse. The genius of Petrarch a was scarcely 
of the first order ; and his poems in the ancient lan- 

15 guage, though much praised by those who have never 
read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley , a with 
all his admirable wit and ingenuity, had little imagi- 
nation : nor, indeed, do we think his classical diction 
comparable to that of Milton. The authority of John- 

20 son is against us on this point. But Johnson had 
studied the bad writers of the Middle Ages till he 
had become utterly insensible to the Augustan ele- 
gance, and was as ill qualified to judge between two 
Latin styles as an habitual drunkard to set up for a 

25 wine-taster. 

Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a 
far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which else- 
where may be found in healthful and spontaneous per- 
fection. The soils on which this rarity flourishes are 

30 in general as ill suited to the production of vigorous 



MACAULAY'3 ESSAY ON MILTON. 51 

native poetry as the flower-pots of a hot-house to the 
growth of oaks. That the author of the Paradise 
Lost should have written the epistle to Manso a was 
truly wonderful. Never before were such marked 
originality and such exquisite mimicry found to- 5 
getlier. Indeed, in all the Latin poems of Milton the 
artificial manner indispensable to such works is ad- 4 
mirably preserved, while, at the same time, his genius 
gives to them a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness 
and freedom, which distinguishes them from all other IO 
writings of the same class. They remind us of the 
amusements of those angelic warriors who composed 
the cohort of Gabriel : 

" About him exercised heroic games 

The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads ig 

Celestial armory, shield, helm and spear, 

Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold." a 

We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which 
the genius of Milton ungirds itself without catching a 
glimpse of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which 20 
it is accustomed to wear. The strength of his imagi- 
nation triumphed over every obstacle. So intense and 
ardent was the fire of his mind, that it not only was 
not suffocated beneath the weight of fuel, but pene- 
trated the whole superincumbent mass with its own 25 
heat and radiance. 

It is not our intention to attempt anything like a 
complete examination of the poetry of Milton. The 
public has long been agreed as to the merit of the 



52 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

most remarkable passages, the incomparable harmony 
of the numbers, and the excellence of that style which 
no rival has been able to equal and no parodist to de- 
grade; which displays in their highest perfection the 
5 idiomatic powers of the English tongue, and to which 
every ancient and every modern language has contrib- 
uted something of grace, of energy, or of music. In 
the vast field of criticism on which we are entering, 
innumerable reapers have already put their sickles. 
ioYet the harvest is so abundant that the negligent 
search of a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with 
a sheaf. 

The most striking characteristic of the poetry of 
Milton is the extreme remoteness of the associations 
15 by means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect 
is produced, not so much by what it expresses, as by 
what it suggests ; not so much by the ideas which it 
directly conveys, as by other ideas which are con- 
nected with them. He electrifies the mind through 
20 conductors. The most unimaginative man must un- 
derstand the Iliad. Homer gives him no choice, and 
requires from him no exertion, but takes the whole 
upon himself, and sets the images in so clear a light 
that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works 
25 of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless 
the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the 
writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play 
for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves 
others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, 
30 and expects his hearer to make out the melody, 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 53 

We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. 
The expression in general means nothing; but, ap- 
plied to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. 
His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less 
in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There 5 
would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words 
than in other words. But they are words of enchant- 
ment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past 
is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty 
start at once into existence, and all the burial-places IO 
of the memory a give up their dead. Change the struc- 
ture of the sentence ; substitute one synonym for an- 
other, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell 
loses its power ; and he who should then hope to con- 
jure with it would find himself as much mistaken as 15 
Cassim in the Arabian tale, a when he stood crying 
"Open Wheat," "Open Barley," to the door that 
obeyed no sound but "Open Sesame." The miserable 
failure of Dryden in his attempt to translate into his 
own diction some parts of the Paradise Lost is a re- 20 
markable instance of this. 

In support of these observations, we may remark 
that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are 
more generally known or more frequently repeated 
than those which are little more than muster-rolls 1 25 
of names. They are not always more appropriate or 
more melodious than other names. But they are " 
charmed names. Every one of them is the first link 
in a long chain of associated ideas. Like the dwell- 
ing-place of our infancy* revisited in manhood, like 3c 



54 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

the song of our country heard in a strange land, they 
produce upon us an effect wholly independent of their 
intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote 
period of history. Another places us among the novel 
5 scenes and manners of a distant region. A third 
evokes all the dear classical recollections of childhood, 
the school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, 
and the prize. A fourth brings before us the splendid 
phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists, 

10 the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the 
haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the achieve- 
ments of enamored knights, and the smiles of rescued 
princesses. 

In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar man- 

isner more happily displayed than in the Allegro and 
the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that the 
mechanism of language can be brought to a more 
exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ 
from others as ottar of roses differs from ordinary 

20 rose-water, the close-packed essence from the thin, 
diluted mixture. They are, indeed, not so much 
poems as collections of hints, from each of which the 
reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every 
epithet is a text for a stanza. 

25 The Comiis and the Samson Agonistes are works 
which, though of very different merit, offer some 
marked points of resemblance. Both are lyric poems 
in the form of plays. There are perhaps no two kinds 
of composition so essentially dissimilar as the drama 

3 o and the ode. The business of the dramatist is to keep 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



55 



himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but 
his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his 
personal feelings, the illusion is broken. The effect 
is as unpleasant as that which is produced on the stage 
by the voice of a prompter or the entrance of a scene- 5 
shifter. Hence it was that the tragedies of Byron 
were his least successful performances. They re- 
semble those pasteboard pictures invented by the 
friend of children, Mr. Newbery, in which a single 
movable head goes round twenty different bodies, so 10 
that the same face looks out upon us successively, 
from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and 
the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots 
and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer 
of Harold a were discernible in an instant. But this 15 
species of egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the 
inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric poet 
to abandon himself, without reserve, to his own emo- 
tions. 

Between these hostile elements many great men 20 
have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never 
with complete success. The Greek drama, on the 
model of which the Samson was written, sprang from 
the ode. The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, 
and naturally partook of its character. The genius of 25 
the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co-operated 
with the circumstances under which tragedy made its 
first appearance. /Eschylus a was, head and heart, a 
lyric poet. In his time, the Greeks had far more in- 
tercourse with the East than in the days of Homer ; 30 



56 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

and they had not yet acquired that immense superi- 
ority in war, in science, and in the arts, which, in the 
following generation, led them to treat the Asiatics 
with contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus* 
5 it should seem that they still looked up, with the 
veneration of disciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At 
this period, accordingly, it was natural that the lit- 
erature of Greece should be tinctured with the Orien- 
tal style. And that style, we think, is discernible in 

IO the works of Pindar a and /Eschylus. The latter often 
reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The Book of Job, 
indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a considerable 
resemblance to some of his dramas. Considered as 
plays, his works are absurd ; considered as choruses, 

15 they are above all praise. If, for instance, we exam- 
ine the address of Clyt^emnestra to Agamemnon a on 
his return, or the description of the seven Argive 
chiefs, a by the principles of dramatic writings, we 
shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if 

20 we forget the characters, and think only of the poetry, 
we shall admit that it has never been surpassed in 
energy and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek 
drama as dramatic as was consistent with its original 
form. His portraits of men have a sort of similarity ; 

25 but it is the similarity, not of a painting, but of a bass- 
relief. It suggests a resemblance ; but it does not pro- 
duce an illusion. Euripides attempted to carry the 
reform further. But it was a task far beyond his 
powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of cor- 

3 o recting what was bad, he destroyed what was excel- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 57 

lent. He substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons 
for good odes. 

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly, 
much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides de- 
served. Indeed, the caresses which this partiality 5 
leads our countryman to bestow on "sad Electra's 
poet" a sometimes remind us of the beautiful Queen 
of Fairy-land a kissing the long ears of Bottom. At 
all events, there can be no doubt that this veneration 
for the Athenian, whether just or not, was injurious 10 
to the Samson Agonistcs. Had Milton taken /Eschy- 
lus for his model, he would have given himself up to 
the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the 
treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought 
on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of the 15 
work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the at- 
tempt to reconcile things in their own nature incon- 
sistent he has failed, as every one else must have 
failed. We cannot identify ourselves with the char- 
acters, as in a good play. We cannot identify our- 20 
selves with the poet, as in a good ode. The conflicting 
ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed, neutral- 
ize each other. We are by no means insensible to the 
merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity 
of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the 25 
opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody 
which gives so striking an effect to the choral 
passages. But we think it, we confess, the least suc- 
cessful effort of the genius of Milton. 

The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian 30 



58 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Masque, a as the Samson is framed on the model of 
the Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the noblest per- 
formance of the kind which exists in any language. 
It is as far superior to The Faithful Shepherdess? 
5 as The Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta* or the 
Aminta to the Pastor Fido. & It was well for Milton 
that he had here no Euripides to mislead him. He 
understood and loved the literature of modern Italy. 
But he did not feel for it the same veneration which 

10 he entertained for the remains of Athenian and Roman 
poetry, consecrated by so many lofty and endearing 
recollections. The faults, moreover, of his Italian 
predecessors were of a kind to which his mind had a 
deadly antipathy. He could stoop to a plain style, 

15 sometimes even to a bald style ; but false brilliancy 
was his utter aversion. His muse had no objection 
to a russet attire ; but she turned with disgust from the 
finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags 
of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. Whatever orna- 

aoment'S she wears are of massive gold, not only daz- 
zling to the sight, but capable of standing the severest 
test of the crucible. 

Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction 
which he afterward neglected in the Samson, He 

25 made his Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyri- 
cal, and dramatic only in semblance. He has not at- 
tempted a fruitless struggle against a defect inher- 
ent in the nature of that species of composition ; and 
he has therefore succeeded, wherever success was not 

30 impossible. The speeches must be read as majestic 



MACAULaY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 59 

soliloquies ; and he who so reads them will be en- 
raptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and 
their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, how- 
ever, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break 
the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are 5 
those which are lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I 
should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry 
Wotton in a letter to Milton, "the tragical part if the 
lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique deli- 
cacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must 10 
plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing parallel 
in our language." The criticism was just. It is when 
Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, 
when he is discharged from the labor of uniting two 
incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his 15 
choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even 
above himself. Then, like his own good Genius burst- 
ing from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he 
stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty ; he seems 
to cry exultingly, 20 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly or I can run," a 

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe 
in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the 
balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the musky 25 
winds of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys 
of the Hesperides. 

There are several of the minor poems a of Milton on 
which we would willingly make a few remarks. Still 



60 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

more willingly would we enter into a detailed exami- 
nation of that admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, 
which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned 
except as an instance of the blindness of the parental 

5 affection which men of letters bear toward the off- 
spring of their intellects. That Milton was mis- 
taken* in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to 
the Paradise Lost, we readily admit. But we are sure 
that the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Para- 

lodise Regained is not more decided than the superi- 
ority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which 
has since made its appearance. Our limits, however, 
prevent us from discussing the point at length. We 
hasten on to that extraordinary production which the 

15 general suffrage of critics has placed in the highest 
class of human compositions. 

The only poem of modern times which can be com- 
pared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. 
The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that 

20 of Dante; but he has treated it in a widely different 
manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our 
opinion respecting our own great poet than by con- 
trasting him with the father of Tuscan literature. 
The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as 

25 the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture- 
writing of Mexico. The images which Dante em- 
ploys speak for themselves; they stand simply for 
what they are. Those of Milton have a signification 
which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their 

30 value depends less on what they directly represent 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 61 

than on what they remotely suggest. However 
strange, however grotesque, may be the appearance 
which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks 
from describing it. He gives us the shape, the color, 
the sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the num- 5 
bers ; he measures the size. His similes are the illus- 
trations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, 
and especially of Milton, they are introduced in a % 
plain, business-like manner ; not for the sake of any 
beauty in the objects from which they are drawn ; 10 
not for the sake of any ornament which they may im- 
part to the poem ; but simply in order to make the 
meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to 
himself. The ruins of the precipice a which led from 
the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those 15 
of the rock which fell into the Adige on the south of 
Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like that of 
Aqua Cheta at the Monastery of St. Benedict. The 
place where the heretics were confined in burning 
tombs resembled the vast cemetery of Aries. 20 

Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante 
the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few 
examples. The English poet has never thought of 
taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a 
vague idea of vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies 25 
stretched out huge in length, floating many a rood, 
equal in size to the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to 
the sea-monster which the mariner mistakes for an 
island. When he addresses himself to battle against 
the guardian angels he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas : 30 



62 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these de- 
scriptions the lines in which Dante has described the 
gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His face seemed to me 
as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at 
5 Rome ; and his other limbs were in proportion ; so 
that the bank, which concealed him from the waist 
downwards, nevertheless showed so much of him that 
three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to 
reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no jus- 

10 tice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. 
But Mr. Cary's translation 1 is not at hand; and our 
version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our 
meaning. 

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh 

15 book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Male- 
bolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, 
and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tre- 
mendous imagery — Despair hurrying from couch to 
couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, 

20 Death shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of sup- 
plications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? 
"There was such a moan there as there would be if all 
the sick who, between July and September, are in the 
hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, 

25 and of Sardinia, were in one pit together ; and such 
a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from de- 
cayed limbs." 

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office 
of settling precedency between two such writers. 

30 Each in his own department is incomparable ; and 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 63 

each, we may remark, has wisely, or fortunately, 
taken a subject adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent 
to the greatest advantage. The Divine Comedy is a 
personal narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear- 
witness of that which he relates. He is the very man 5 
who has heard the tormented spirits crying out for 
the second death, who has read the dusky characters 
on the portal within which there is no hope, who has 
hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, who 
has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of 10 
Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands have 
grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet 
have climbed the mountain of expiation. His own 
brow has been marked by the purifying angel. The 
reader would throw aside such a tale in incredulous 15 
disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of 
veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the 
greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The 
narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that 
of Dante as the adventures of Amadis differ from 2c 
those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis 3 - would 
have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced 
those minute particulars which give such a charm to 
the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the af- 
fected delicacy about names, the official documents 25 
transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning 
gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of noth- 
ing, and tending to nothing. We are not shocked at 
being told that a man who lived, nobody knows when, 
saw many very strange sights, and we can easily 30 



64 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

abandon ourselves to the illusion of the romance. 
But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, resident at Roth- 
erhithe, tells us of pigmies and giants, flying islands, 
and philosophizing horses, nothing but such circum- 

5 stantial touches could produce for a single moment a 
deception on the imagination. 

Of all the poets who have introduced into their 
works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has 
succeeded best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him : 

10 and as this is a point on which many rash and ill- 
considered judgments have been pronounced, we feel 
inclined to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal 
error which a poet can possibly commit in the man- 
agement of his machinery is that of attempting to 

15 philosophize too much. Milton has been often cen- 
sured for ascribing to spirits many functions of which 
spirits must be incapable. But these objections, 
though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we 
venture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of 

20 poetry. 

What is spirit? What are our own minds, the por- 
tion of spirit with which we are best acquainted? 
We observe certain phenomena. We cannot explain 
them into material causes. We therefore infer that 

25 there exists something which is not material. But of 
this something we have no idea. We can define it 
only by negatives. We can reason about it only by 
symbols. We use the word, but we have no image of 
the thing; and the business of poetry is with images, 

30 and not with words. The poet uses words, indeed; 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 65 

but they are merely the instruments of his art, not its 
objects. They are the materials which he is to dis- 
pose in such a manner as to present a picture to the 
mental eye. And if they are not so disposed, they are 
no more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of 5 
canvas and a box of colors to be called a painting. 

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the 
great mass of men must have images. The strong 
tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to 
idolatry can be explained on no other principle. The 10 
first inhabitants of Greece, there is reason to believe, 
worshipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of 
having something more definite to adore produced, in 
a few centuries, the innumerable crowd of gods and 
goddesses. In like manner the ancient Persians 15 
thought it impious to exhibit the creator under a 
human form. Yet even these transferred to the sun 
the worship which, in speculation, they considered 
due only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the 
Jews is the record of a continued struggle between 20 
pure Theism, supported by the more terrible sanctions, 
and the strangely fascinating desire of having some 
visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps 
none of the secondary causes 3 which Gibbon has as- 
signed for the rapidity with which Christianity spread 05 
over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired 
a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feel- 
ing. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the 
invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philosopher 
might admire so noble a conception ; but the crowd 30 



66 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

turned away in disgust from words which presented 
no image to their minds. It was before Deity em- 
bodied in a human form, walking among men, partak- 
ing of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weep- 
5 ing over their graves, slumbering in the manger, 
bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the Syna- 
gogue, and the doubts of the Academy, 3 and the pride 
of the Portico, a and the fasces of the Lictor, and the 
swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the dust. 

10 Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the 
principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it. 
It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed 
the offices of household gods. St. George took the 
place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for 

15 the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother 
and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The 
fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to 
that of celestial dignity ; and the homage of chivalry 
was blended with that of religion. Reformers have 

20 often made a stand against these feelings ; but never 
with more than apparent and partial success. The 
men who demolished the images a and cathedrals 
have not always been able to demolish those which 
were enshrined in their minds. It would not be dif- 

25 ficult to show that in politics the same rule holds 
good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be 
embodied before they can excite a strong public feel- 
ing. The multitude is more easily interested for the 
most unmeaning badge, or the most insignificant 

30 name, than for the most important principle. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 67 

From these considerations, we infer that no poet 
who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the 
want of which Milton has been blamed would escape 
a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there was an- 
other extreme which, though far less dangerous, was 5 
also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in a 
great measure under the control of their opinions. 
The most exquisite art of poetical coloring can pro- 
duce no illusion when it is employed to represent that 
which is at once perceived to be incongruous and 10 
absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers and 
theologians. It was necessary, therefore, for him to 
abstain from giving such a shock to their understand- 
ings as might break the charm which it was his ob- 
ject to throw over their imaginations. This is the 15 
real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsis- 
tency with which he has often been reproached. 
Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it was absolutely 
necessary that the spirit should be clothed with ma- 
terial forms. "But," says he, "the poet should have 20 
secured the consistency of his system by keeping im- 
materiality out of sight, and seducing the reader to 
drop it from his thoughts." This is easily said ; but 
what if Milton could not seduce his readers to drop 
immateriality from their thoughts? What if the 25 
contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the 
minds of men as to leave no room even for the half- 
belief which poetry requires? Such we suspect to 
have been the case. It was impossible for the poet to 
adopt altogether the material or the immaterial sys- 30 



68 JOHNSON'S ENGMSH CLASSICS 

tem. He therefore took his stand on the debatable 
ground. He left the whole in ambiguity. He has 
doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the charge 
of inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the 
5 wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically 
in the right. This task, which almost any other writer 
would have found impracticable, was easy to him. 
The peculiar art which he possessed of communicat- 
ing his meaning circuitously through a long succes- 

iosion of associated ideas, and of intimating more than 
he expressed, enabled him to disguise those incon- 
gruities which he could not avoid. 

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world 
ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That 

15 of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque, indeed, 
beyond any that ever was written. Its effect ap- 
proaches to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. 
But it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. 
This is a fault on the right side, a fault inseparable 

20 from the plan of Dante's poem, which, as we have al- 
ready observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of de- 
scription necessary. Still it is a fault. The super- 
natural agents excite an interest ; but it is not the in- 
terest which is proper to supernatural agents. We 

25 feel that we could talk to the ghosts and demons with- 
out any emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like 
Don Juan, a ask them to supper, and eat heartily in 
their company. Dante's angels are good men with 
wings. His devils are spiteful, ugly executioners. 

30 His dead men are merely living men in strange situ* 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 69 

ations. The scene which passes between the poet and 
Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in the 
burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have 
been at an auto-da-fe. Nothing can be more touch- 
ing than the first interview of Dante and Beatrice. 5 
Yet what is it but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet, 
austere composure, the lover for whose affection she 
is grateful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feel- 
ings which give the passage its charm would suit the 
streets of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount 10 
of Purgatory. 

The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all 
other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonder- 
ful creations. They are not metaphysical abstrac- 
tions. They are not wicked men. They are not ugly I5 
beasts. They have no horns, no tails, none of the fee- 
faw-fum a of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just 
enough in common with human nature to be intel- 
ligible to human beings. Their characters are, like 
their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to 20 
those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, 
and veiled in mysterious gloom. 

Perhaps the gods and demons of /Eschylus may 
best bear a comparison with the angels and devils of 
Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we have 25 
remarked, something of the Oriental character; and 
the same peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. 
It has nothing of the amenity and elegance which we 
generally find in the superstitions of Greece. All is 
rugged, barbaric, and colossal. The legends of 3Q 



yo JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

^schylus seem to harmonize less with the fragrant 
groves and graceful porticos in which his country- 
men paid their vows to the God of Light and God- 
dess of Desire than with those huge and grotesque 
5 labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt en- 
shrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindoostan still 
bows down to her seven-headed idols. Her favorite 
gods are those of the elder generation, the sons of 
heaven and earth, compared with whom Jupiter him- 

10 self was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic 
Titans, and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among 
his creations of this class stands Prometheus, half 
fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen 
and implacable enemy of heaven. Prometheus bears 

I5 undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the Satan 
of Milton. In both we find the same impatience of 
control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable 
pride. In both characters also are mingled, though 
in very different proportions, some kind and generous 

20 feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly super- 
human enough. He talks too much of his chains and 
his uneasy posture: he is rather too much depressed 
and agitated. His resolution seems to depend on the 
knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate 

25 of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his 
release will surely come. But Satan is a creature of 
another sphere. The might of his intellectual nature 
is victorious over the extremity of pain. Amidst 
•agonies which cannot be conceived without horror, 

30 he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



7 1 



the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, 
against the flaming lake, and the marl burning with 
solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity of un- 
intermitted misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, rest- 
ing on its own innate energies, requiring no support 5 
from anything external, nor even from hope itself. 

To return for a moment to the parallel which we 
have been attempting to draw between Milton and 
Dante, we would add that the poetry of these great 
men has in a considerable degree taken its character 10 
from their moral qualities. They are not egotists. 
They rarely obtrude their idiosyncrasies on their read- 
ers. They have nothing in common with those mod- 
ern beggars for fame a who extort a pittance from the 
compassion of the inexperienced by exposing the nak- I5 
edness and sores of their minds. Yet it would be dif- 
ficult to name two writers whose works have been 
more completely, though undesignedly, colored by 
their personal feelings. 

The character of Milton was peculiarly distin- 2 o 
guished by loftiness of spirit ; that of Dante by in- 
tensity of feeling. In every line of the Divine Comedy 
we discern the asperity which is produced by pride 
struggling with misery. There is perhaps no work in 
the world so deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The 25 
melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. It was 
not, as far as at this distance of time can be judged, 
the effect of external circumstances. It was from 
within. Neither love nor glory, neither the conflicts 
of earth nor the hope of heaven, could dispel it. It 3Q 



J2 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

turned every consolation and every pleasure into its 
own nature. It resembled that noxious Sardinian 
soil of which the intense bitterness is said to have 
been perceptible even in its honey. His mind was, in 
5 tfre noble language of the Hebrew poet, "a land of 
darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light was 
as darkness." The gloom of his character discolors 
all the passions of men, and all the face of nature, and 
tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of Paradise 

ioand the glories of the eternal throne. All the por- 
traits of him a are singularly characteristic. No per- 
son can look on the features, noble even to rugged- 
ness — the dark furrows of the cheek, the haggard and 
woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemptuous 

15 curve of the lip — and doubt that they belong to a man 
too proud and too sensitive to be happy. 

Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover; 
and, like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition 
and in love. He had survived his health and his 

20 sight, the comforts of his home, and the prosperity of 
his party. Of the great men by whom he had been 
distinguished at his entrance into life, some had been 
taken away from the evil to come ; some had carried 
into foreign climates their unconquerable hatred of 

25 oppression ; some were pining in dungeons ; and some 
had poured forth their blood on scaffolds. Venal and 
licentious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to 
clothe the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bell- 
man, were now the favorite writers of the Sovereign 

30 and of the public. It was a loathsome herd, which 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 73 

could be compared to nothing so fitly as to the rabble 
of Comus, grotesque monsters, half bestial, half 
human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, 
and reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these that fair 
Muse was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, 5 
lofty, spotless, and serene, to be chattered at, and 
pointed at, and grinned at, by the whole rout of Satyrs 
and Goblins. If ever despondency and asperity could 
be excused in any man, they might have been ex- 
cused in Milton. But the strength of his mind over- i Q 
came every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, 
nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor po- 
litical disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, 
raor neglect, had power to disturb his sedate and ma- 
jestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have been I5 
high, but they were singularly equable. His temper 
was serious, perhaps stern ; but it was a temper which 
no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such as 
it was when, on the eve of great events, he returned 
from his travels, in the prime of health and manly 20 
beauty, loaded with literary distinctions, and glowing 
with patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, 
after having experienced every calamity which is in- 
cident to our nature, old, poor, sightless, and dis- 
graced, he retired to his hovel to die. a 25 

Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise 
Lost at a time of life when images of beauty and ten- 
derness are in general beginning to fade, even from 
those minds in which they have not been effaced by 
anxiety and disappointment, he adorned it with all 30 



74 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

that is most lovely and delightful in the physical and 
in the moral world. Neither Theocritus a nor Ariosto 3 
had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasant- 
ness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate 
5 amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightin- 
gales, the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of 
shady fountains. His conception of love unites all the 
voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and all the gal- 
lantry of the chivalric tournament, with all the pure 

ic and quiet affection of an English fireside. His poetry 
reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks 
and dells, beautiful as fairy-land, are embosomed in 
its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses 
and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the ava- 

15 lanche. 

Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton 
may be found in all his works ; but it is most strongly 
displayed in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems 
have been undervalued by critics who have not under- 

20 stood their nature. They have no epigrammatic point. 
There is none of the ingenuity of Filicaja a in the 
thought, none of the hard and brilliant enamel of 
Petrarch in the style. They are simple but majestic 
records of the feelings of the poet ; as little tricked 

25 out for the public eye as his diary would have been. 
A victory, an expected attack upon the city, a momen- 
tary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out 
against one of his books, a dream which for a short 
time restored to him that beautiful face over which 

30 the grave had closed forever, led him to musings. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 75 

which, without effort, shaped themselves into verse. 
The unity of sentiment and severity of style which 
characterize these little pieces remind us of the Greek 
Anthology, or perhaps still more of the Collects of 
the English Liturgy. The noble poem on the massa- 5 
cres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse. 

The Sonnets are more or less striking, according 
as the occasions which gave birth to them are more or 
less interesting. But they are, almost without excep- 
tion, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to 10 
which we know not where to look for a parallel. It 
would, indeed, be scarcely safe to draw any decided in- 
ferences as to the character of a writer from passages 
directly egotistical. But the qualities which we have 
ascribed to Milton, though perhaps most strongly I5 
marked in those parts of his works which treat of his 
personal feelings, are distinguishable in every page, 
and impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, Eng- 
lish, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness. 

His public conduct was such as was to be expected 20 
from a man of spirit so high and of an intellect so 
powerful. He lived at one of the most memorable 
eras in the history of mankind, at the very crisis of 
the great conflict between Oromasdes and Arimanes, a 
liberty and despotism, reason and prejudice. That 25 
great battle was fought for no single generation, for 
no single land. The destinies of the human race were 
staked on the same cast with the freedom of the 
English people. Then were first proclaimed those 
mighty principles which have since worked their way 30 



76 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

into the depths of the American forests, which have 
roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of 
two thousand years, and which, from one end of 
Europe to the other, have kindled an unquenchable 
5 fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the 
knees of the oppressors with an unwonted fear. 

Of those principles, then struggling for their infant 
existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent 
literary champion. We need not say how much we 

10 admire his public conduct. But we Cannot- disguise 
from ourselves that a large portion of his countrymen 
still think it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, has 
been more discussed, and is less understood, than any 
event in English history. The friends of liberty 

15 labored under the disadvantage of which the lion in 
the fable a complained so bitterly. Though they were 
the conquerors, their enemies were the painters. As 
a body, the Roundheads had done their utmost to de- 
cry and ruin literature ; and literature was even with 

20 them, as, in the long run, it always is with its ene- 
mies. The best book a on their side of the question is 
the charming narrative of Mrs. Hutchinson. May's 
History of the Parliament is good ; but it breaks off 
at the most interesting crisis of the struggle. The 

25 performance of Ludlow is foolish and violent; and 
most of the later writers who have espoused the same 
cause — Oldmixion, for instance, and Catherine 
Macaulay — have, to say the least, been more distin- 
guished by zeal than either by candor or by skill. On 

30 the other side are the most authoritative and the most 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. yy 

popular historical works in our language, that of 
Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not 
only ably written and full of valuable information, but 
has also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes 
even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds 5 
respectable. Hume, from whose fascinating narra- 
tive the great mass of the reading public are still con- 
tented to take their opinions, hated religion so much ! 
that he hated liberty for having been allied with re- 
ligion, and has pleaded the cause of tyranny with the 10 
dexterity of an advocate while affecting the impar- 
tiality of a judge. 

The public conduct of Milton must be approved or 
condemned according as the resistance of the people 
to Charles the First shall appear to be justifiable or 15 
criminal. We shall, therefore, make no apology for 
dedicating a few pages to the discussion of that inter- 
esting and most important question. We shall not 
argue it on general grounds. We shall not recur to 
those primary principles from which the claim of any 20 
government to the obedience of its subjects is to be 
deduced. We are entitled to that vantage-ground ; 
but we will relinquish it. We are, on this point, so 
confident of superiority, that we are not unwilling to 
imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient 25 
knights who vowed to joust without helmet or shield 
against all enemies, and to give 'their antagonists the 
advantage of sun and wind. We will take the naked 
constitutional question. We confidently affirm that 
every reason which can be urged in favor of the Rev- ^ 



78 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

olution of 1688 may be urged with at least equal force 
in favor of what is called the Great Rebellion. 

In one respect only, we think, can the warmest ad- 
mirers of Charles venture to say that he was a better 
5 sovereign than his son. He was not, in name and pro- 
fession, a Papist ; we say in name and profession, be- 
cause both Charles himself and his creature Laud, a 
while they abjured the innocent badges of popery, 
retained all its worst vices — a complete subjection of 

10 reason to authority, a weak preference of form to 
substance, a childish passion for mummeries, an idola- 
trous veneration for the priestly character, and, above 
all, a merciless intolerance. This, however, we waive. 
We will concede that Charles was a good Protestant ; 

15 but we say that his Protestantism does not make the 
slightest distinction between his case and that of 
James. 

The principles of the Revolution have often been 
grossly misrepresented, and never more than in the 

20 course of the present year. There is a certain class 
of men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence 
the great names and great actions of former times, 
never look at them for any other purpose than in order 
to find in them some excuse for existing abuses. In 

25 every venerable precedent they pass by what is essen- 
tial, and take only what is accidental : they keep out of 
sight what is beneficial, and hold up to public imita- 
tion all that is defective. If in any part of any great 
example there be anything unsound, these flesh-flies 

30 detect it with an unerring instinct, and dart upon it 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 79 

with a ravenous delight. If some good end has been 
attained in spite of them, they feel, with their proto- 
type, that 

" Their labor must be to pervert that end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil."* 5 

To the blessings which England has derived from 
the Revolution these people are utterly insensible. 
The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of 
popular rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for 
nothing with them. One sect there was, which, from 10 
unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought neces- 
sary to keep under close restraint. One part of the 
empire there was so unhappily circumstanced, that at 
that time its misery was necessary to our happiness, 
and its slavery to our freedom. These are the parts 15 
of the Revolution which the politicians of whom we 
speak love to contemplate, and which seem to them 
not indeed to vindicate, but in some degree to palli- 
ate, the good which it has produced. Talk to them 
of Naples/ of Spain, or of South America. They 2Q 
stand forth zealots for the doctrine of Divine Right, 
which has now come back to us, like a thief from 
transportation, under the alias of Legitimacy. But 
mention the miseries of Ireland. Then William is a 
hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are great men. 25 
Then the Revolution is a glorious era. The very 
same persons who, in this country, never omit an 
opportunity of reviving every wretched Jacobite 
slander* respecting the Whigs of that period, have no 



go JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

sooner crossed St. George's Channel than they begirt 
to fill their bumpers to the glorious and immortal 
memory. They may truly boast that they look not at 
men, but at measures. So that*evil be done, they care 
5 not who does it ; ths arbitrary Charles, or the liberal 
William, Ferdinand the Catholic,* or Frederic the 
Protestant. On such occasions their deadliest op- 
ponents may reckon upon their candid construction. 
The bold assertions of these people have of late im- 

10 pressed a large portion of the public with an opinion 
that James the Second was expelled simply because he 
was a Catholic, and that the Revolution was essen- 
tially a Protestant Revolution. 

But this certainly was not the case ; nor can any per- 

15 son who has acquired more knowledge of the history 
of those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's 
Abridgment* believe that, if James had held his own 
religious opinions without wishing to make proselytes, 
or if, wishing even to make proselytes, he had con- 

20 tented himself with exerting only his constitutional in- 
fluence for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would 
ever have been invited over. Our ancestors, we sup- 
pose, knew their own meaning; and, if we may be- 
lieve them, their hostility was primarily not to popery, 

25 but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant be- 
cause he was a Catholic ; but they excluded Catholics 
from the crown because they thought them likely to be 
tyrants. The ground on which they, in their famous 
resolution, declared the throne vacant, was this, "that 

30 James had broken the fundamental laws of the king- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 8l 

dom." Every man, therefore, who approves of the 
Revolution of 1688 must hold that the breach of 
fundamental laws on the part of the sovereign justi- 
fies resistance. The question, then, is this: Had 
Charles the First broken the fundamental laws of 5 
England ? 

No person can answer in the negative, unless he re- 
fuses credit, not merely to all the accusations brought 
against Charles by his opponents, but to the narra- 
tives of the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions 10 
of the King himself. If there be any truth in any his- 
torian of any party who has related the events of that 
reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to 
the meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a con- 
tinued course of oppression and treachery. Let those 15 
who applaud the Revolution and condemn the Re- 
bellion mention one act of James the Second to which 
a parallel is not to be found in the history of his father. 
Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the 
Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to 20 
William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowl- 
edged to have violated. He had, according to the 
testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions 
of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of 
Parliament, and quartered troops on the people in the 25 
most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single ses- 
sion of Parliament had passed without some uncon- 
stitutional attack on the freedom of debate ; the right 
of petition was grossly violated ; arbitrary judgments, 
exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments were 30 



8:2 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do not 
justify resistance, the Revolution was treason ; if they 
do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. 

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? 
5 Why, after the king had consented to so many re- 
forms, and renounced so many oppressive preroga- 
tives, did the Parliament continue to rise in their de- 
mands at the risk of provoking a civil war? The 
ship-money had been given up. The Star Chamber 

IQ had been abolished. Provision had been made for the 
frequent convocation and secure deliberation of par- 
liaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good 
by peaceable and regular means? We recur again to 
the analogy of the Revolution. Why was James 

I5 driven from the throne? Why was he not retained 
upon conditions? He too had offered to call a free 
parliament, and to submit to its decision all the mat- 
ters in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising 
our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a dis- 

20 puted succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years 
of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a 
national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a 
tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parliament acted 
on the same principle, and is entitled to the same 

2 5 praise. They could not trust the king. He had no 
doubt passed salutary laws ; but what assurance was 
there that he would not break them? He had re- 
nounced oppressive prerogatives ; but where was the 
security that he would not resume them ? The nation 

30 had to deal with a man whom no tie could bind, a 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 83 

man who made and broke promises with equal facility, 
a man whose honor had been a hundred times pawned, 
and never redeemed. 

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still 
stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No 5 
action of James can be compared to the conduct of 
Charles with respect to the Petition of Right. The 
Lords and Commons present him with a bill in which 
the constitutional limits of his power are marked out. 
He hesitates ; he evades ; at last he bargains to give 10 
his assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his 
solemn assent ; the subsidies are voted ; but no sooner 
is the tyrant relieved than he returns at once to all 
the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to 
abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very act 15 
which he had been paid to pass. 

For more than ten years the people had seen the 
rights which were theirs by a double claim, by imme- 
morial inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed 
by the perfidious king who had recognized them. At 20 
length circumstances compelled Charles to summon 
another Parliament ; another chance was given to our 
fathers : were they to throw it away as they had 
thrown away the former? Were they again to be 
cozened by le Roi le veutf* Were they again to ad- 25 
vance their money on pledges which had been for- 
feited over and over again? Were they to lay a 
second Petition of Right at the foot of the throne, to 
grant another lavish aid in exchange for another un- 
meaning ceremony, and then to take their departure, jq 



84 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

till, after ten years more of fraud and oppression, 
their prince should again require a supply, and again 
repay it with a perjury? They were compelled to 
choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer 

5 him. We think tnat they chose wisely and nobly. 
The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of 
other malefactors against whom overwhelming evi- 
dence is produced, generally decline all controversy 
about the facts, and content themselves with calling 

10 testimony to character. He had so many private vir- 
tues ! And had James the Second no private virtues? 
Was Oliver Cromwell, 11 his bitterest enemies them- 
selves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And 
what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? 

15 A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his 
son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a 
few of the ordinary household decencies which half 
the tombstones in England claim for those who lie 
beneath them. A good father ! A good husband ! 

20 Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecu- 
tion, tyranny, and falsehood ! 

We charge him a with having broken his corona- 
tion oath ; and we are told that he kept his marriage 
vow ! We accuse him of having given up his people 

25 to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and 
hard-hearted of prelates ; and the defense is, that he 
took his little son on his knee and kissed him ! We 
censure him for having violated the articles of the 
Petition of Right, after having, for good and valu- 

30 able consideration, promised to observe them ; and we 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 85 

are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers 
at six o'clock in the morning ! It is to such considera- 
tions as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his 
handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, 
we verily believe, most of his popularity with the 5 
present generation. 

For ourselves, we own that we do not understand 
the common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We 
can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural 
father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We 10 
cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, 
leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most 
important of all human relations ; and if in that rela- 
tion we find him to have been selfish, cruel, and de- 
ceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad man, 15 
in spite of all his temperance at table, and all his reg- 
ularity at chapel. 

We cannot refrain from adding a few words re- 
specting a topic on which the defenders of Charles 
are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he governed his 20 
people ill, he at least governed them after the example 
of his predecessors. If he violated their privileges, 
it was because their privileges had not been accu- 
rately defined. No act of oppression has ever been 
imputed to him which has not a parallel in the annals 25 
of the Tudors. This point Hume has labored, with 
an art which is as discreditable in a historical work 
as it would be admirable in a forensic address. The 
answer is short, clear, and decisive. Charles had as- 
sented to the Petition of Right., He had renounced 30 



86 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

the oppressive powers said to have been exercised by 
his predecessors, and he had renounced them for 
money. He was not entitled to set up his antiquated 
claims against his own recent release. 
5 These arguments are so obvious that it may seem 
superfluous to dwell upon them- But those who have 
observed how much the events of that time are mis- 
represented and misunderstood will not blame us for 
stating the case simply. It is a case of which the 
10 simplest statement is the strongest. 

The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely 
choose to take issue on the great points of the ques- 
tion. They content themselves with exposing some of 
the crimes and follies to which public commotions 

15 necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited 
fate of Strafford. a They execrate the lawless violence 
of the army. They laugh at the Scriptural names of 
the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts ; 
soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry ; 

20 upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking pos- 
session of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees 
of the old gentry ; boys smashing the beautiful win- 
dows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through 
the market-place ; Fifth-monarchy-men a shouting for 

25 King Jesus ; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs 
on the fate of Agag; all these, they tell us, were the 
offspring of the Great Rebellion. 

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this 
matter. These charges, were they infinitely more im- 

30 portant, would not alter our opinion of an event which 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 87 

alone has made us to differ from the slaves who 
crouch beneath despotic sceptres. Many evils, no 
doubt, were produced by the civil war. They were 
the price of our liberty. Has the accmisition been 
worth the sacrifice? It is the nature of the devil of 5 
tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. 
Are the miseries of continued possession less horrible 
than the struggles of the tremendous exorcism? 

If it were possible that a people brought up under 
an intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that 10 
system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the ob- 
jections to despotic power would be removed. We 
should, in that case, be compelled to acknowledge that 
it at least produces no pernicious effects on the intel- 
lectual and moral character of a nation. We deplore 15 
the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the 
more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel 
that a revolution was necessary. The violence of 
these outrages will always be proportioned to the 
ferocity and ignorance of the people ; and the ferocity 2 o 
and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to 
the oppression and degradation under which they have 
been accustomed to live. Thus it was in our civil war. 
The heads of the Church and State reaped only that 
which they had sown. The Government had pro- 25 
hibited free discussion ; it had done its best to keep 
the people unacquainted with their duties and their 
rights. The retribution was just and natural. If our 
rulers suffered from popular ignorance, it was because 
they had themselves taken away the key of knowledge. 30 



88 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

If they were assailed with blind fury, it was because 
they had exacted an equally blind submission. 

It is the character of such revolutions that we 
always see the worst of them at first. Till men have 

5 been some time free, they know not how to use their 
freedom. The natives of wine countries are generally 
sober. In climates where wine is a rarity intemper- 
ance abounds. A newly liberated people may be com- 
pared to a Northern army encamped on the Rhine or 

10 the Xeres. It is said that when soldiers in such a 
situation find themselves able to indulge without re- 
straint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is 
to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty 
teaches discretion ; and, after wine has been for a few 

15 months their daily fare, they become more temperate 
than they had ever been in their own country. In the 
same manner, the final and permanent fruits of lib- 
erty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its imme- 
diate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting 

20 errors, skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism 
on points the most mysterious. It is just at this crisis 
that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down 
the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice; they 
point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the com- 

25 fortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole 
appearance ; and then ask in scorn where the promised 
splendor and comfort is to be found. If such miser- 
able sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a 
good house or a good government in the world. 

3 o Ariosto a tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 89 ' 

mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to 
appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and 
poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the 
period of her disguise were forever excluded from 
participation in the blessings which she bestowed. 5 
But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, 
pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed her- 
self in the beautiful and celestial form which was 
natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all 
their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made 10 
them happy in love and victorious in war. Such a 
spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a 
hateful reptile. She grovels,* she hisses, she stings. 
But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to 
crush her ! And happy are those who, having dared 15 
to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, 
shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her 
beauty and her glory ! 

There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
acquired freedom produces ; and that cure is freedom. 20 
When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear 
the light of day ; he is unable to discriminate colors 
or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand 
him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays 
of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first 25 
dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half- 
blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, 
and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years 
men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opin- 
ions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. 30 



90 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and 
begin to coalesce; and at length a system of justice 
and order is educed out of the chaos. 

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of lay- 
5 ing it down as a self-evident proposition, that no 
people ought to be free till they are fit to use their 
freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the 
old story, who resolved not to go into the water till 
he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for 
io liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they 
may indeed wait forever. 

Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the 
conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men, 
who, in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful 
15 in the conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the 
cause of public liberty. We are not aware that the 
poet has been charged with personal participation in 
any of the blamable excesses of that time. The favor- 
ite topic of his enemies is the line of conduct which he 
20 pursued with regard to the execution of the King. Of 
that celebrated proceeding we by no means approve. 
Still, we must say, in justice to the many eminent 
persons who concurred in it, and in justice, more par- 
ticularly, to the eminent person who defended it, that 
25 nothing can be more absurd than the imputations 
which, for the last hundred and sixty years, it has 
been the fashion to cast upon the Regicides. We have, 
throughout, abstained from appealing to first prin- 
ciples. We will not appeal to them now. We recur 
30 again to the parallel case of the Revolution. What 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 91 

essential distinction can be drawn between the execu- 
tion of the father and the deposition of the son? 
What constitutional maxim is there which applies to 
the former and not to the latter? The King can do 
no wrong. If so, James was as innocent as Charles 5 
could have been. The minister only ought to be re- 
sponsible for the acts of the sovereign. If so, why 
not impeach Jeffreys' 1 and retain James? The person 
of a king is sacred. Was the person of James con- 
sidered sacred at the Boyne? To discharge cannon IO 
against an army in which a king is known to be posted 
is to approach pretty near to regicide. Charles, too, 
it should always be remembered, was put to death by 
men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of 
several years, and who had never been bound to him I5 
by any other tie than that which was common to them 
with all their fellow-citizens. Those who drove James 
from his throne, who seduced his army, who alienated 
his friends, who first imprisoned him in his palace, 
and then turned him out of it, who broke in upon his 20 
very slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued 
him with fire and sword from one part of the empire to 
another, who hanged, drew, and quartered his adhe- 
rents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his nephew 
and his two daughters. When we reflect on all these 25 
things, we are at a loss to conceive how the same 
persons who, on the fifth of November, thank God for 
wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for 
making all opposition fall before him until he became 
our King and Governor, can, on the thirtieth of Janu- 30 



92 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

ary, contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal 
Martyr may be visited on themselves and their chil- 
dren. 

We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of 
5 Charles ; not because the constitution exempts the 
king from responsibility, for we know that all such 
maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions ; 
nor because we feel any peculiar interest in his char- 
acter, for we think that his sentence describes him 

10 with perfect justice as "a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, 
and a public enemy ;" but because we are convinced 
that the measure was most injurious to the cause of 
freedom. He whom it removed was a captive and 
a hostage: his heir, to whom the allegiance of every 

i 5 Royalist was instantly transferred, was at large. The 
Presbyterians could never have been perfectly recon- 
ciled to the father: they had no such rooted enmity 
to the son. The great body of the people, also, con- 
templated that proceeding with feelings which, how- 

ao ever unreasonable, no government could safely ven- 
ture to outrage. 

But though we think the conduct of the Regicides 
blamable, that of Milton appears to us in a very differ- 
ent light. The deed was done. It could not be 
undone. The evil was incurred ; and the object was to 
render it as small as possible. We censure the chiefs 
of the army for not yielding to the popular opinion ; 
but we cannot censure Milton for wishing to change 
that opinion. The very feeling which would have 

30 restrained us from committing the act would have led 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



93 



us, after it had been committed, to defend it against 
the ravings of servility and superstition. For the sake 
of public liberty, we wish that the thing had not been 
done, while the people disapproved of it. But, for the 
sake of public liberty, we should also have wished the 5 
people to approve of it when it was done. If anything 
more were wanting to the justification of Milton, the 
book of Salmasius would furnish it. That miserable 
performance is now with justice considered only as a 
beacon to word-catchers, who wish to become states- 10 
men. The celebrity of the man who refuted it, the 
ALncae magni dextra,*- gives it all its fame with the 
present generation. In that age the state of things 
was different. It was not then fully understood how 
vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar 15 
from the political philosopher. Nor can it be doubted 
that a treatise which, bearing the name of so eminent 
a critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all free 
governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered, 
have produced a most pernicious effect on the public 20 
mind. 

We wish to add a few words relative to another 
subject on which the enemies of Milton delight to 
dwell — his conduct during the administration of the 
Protector. That an enthusiastic votary of liberty 25 
should accept office under a military usurper seems, 
no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all the 
circumstances in which the country was then placed 
were extraordinary. The ambition of Oliver was of 
no vulgar kind. He never seems to have coveted 30 



94 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

despotic power. He at first fought sincerely and man- 
fully for the Parliament, and never deserted it till it 
had deserted its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it 
was not till he found that the few members who re- 

5 mained after so many deaths, secessions, and expul- 
sions, were desirous to appropriate to themselves a 
power which they held only in trust, and to inflict 
upon England the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But 
even when thus placed by violence at the head of 

10 affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He gave 
the country a constitution far more perfect than any 
which had at that time been known in the world. He 
reformed the representative system in a manner which 
has extorted praise even from Lord Clarendon. For 

15 himself he demanded indeed the first place in the 
commonwealth ; but with powers scarcely so great as 
those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an American presi- 
dent. He gave the Parliament a voice in the appoint- 
ment of ministers, and left to it the whole legislative 

20 authority, not even reserving to himself a veto on its 
enactments ; and he did not require that the chief 
magistracy should be hereditary in his family. Thus 
far, we think, if the circumstances of the time and the 
opportunities which he had of aggrandizing himself 

25 be fairly considered, he will not lose by comparison 
with Washington or Bolivar. a Had his moderation 
been met by corresponding moderation, there is no 
reason to think that he would have overstepped the 
line which he had traced for himself. But when he 

30 found that his parliaments questioned the authority 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 95 

under which they met, and that he was in danger of 
being deprived of the restricted power which was 
absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then, it 
must be acknowledged, he adopted a more arbitrary 
policy. 5 

Yet, though we believe that the intentions of Crom- 
well were at first honest, though we believe that he was 
driven from the noble course which he had marked 
out for himself by the almost irresistible force of cir- 
cumstances, though we admire, in common with all 10 
men of all parties, the ability and energy of his splen- 
did administration, we are not pleading for arbitrary 
and lawless power, even in his hands. We know that 
a good constitution is infinitely better than the best 
despot. But we suspect that, at the time of which we rs 
speak, the violence of religious and political enmities 
rendered a stable and happy settlement next to im- 
possible. The choice lay, not between Cromwell and 
liberty, but between Cromwell and the Stuarts. That 
Milton chose well, no man can doubt who fairly com- 20 
pares the events of the protectorate with those of the 
thirty years which succeeded it, the darkest and most 
disgraceful in the English annals. Cromwell was evi- 
dently laying, though in an irregular manner, the 
foundations of an admirable system. Never before 25 
had religious liberty and the freedom of discussion 
been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the 
national honor been better upheld abroad, or the seat 
of justice better filled at home. And it was rarely 
that any opposition which stopped short of open rebel- 30 



96 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

lion provoked the resentment of the liberal and mag- 
nanimous usurper. The institutions which he had 
established, as set down in the Instrument of Govern- 
ment, and the Humble Petition and Advice, were 

5 excellent. His practice, it is true, too often departed 
from the theory of these institutions. But had he lived 
a few years longer, it is probable that his institutions 
would have survived him, and that his arbitrary prac- 
tice would have died with him. His power had not 

10 been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It was upheld 
only by his great personal qualities. Little, therefore, 
was to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he 
were also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events 
which followed his decease are the most complete vin- 

15 dication of those who exerted themselves to uphold 
his authority. His death dissolved the whole frame of 
society. The army rose against the Parliament, the 
different corps of the army against each other. Sect 
raved against sect. Party plotted against party. The 

20 Presbyterians, in their eagerness to be revenged on 
the Independents, sacrificed their own liberty, and 
deserted all their old principles. Without casting one 
glance on the past, or requiring one stipulation for the 
future, they threw down their freedom at the feet of 

25 the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. 

Then came those days, a never to be recalled without 
a blush, the days of serviture without loyalty and 
sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigan- 
tic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow 

3 o minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and 



MACAULaY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 97 

the slave. The King cringed to his rival that he might 
trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, 
and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading 
insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of 
harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the policy 5 
of the State. The government had just ability enough 
to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. 
The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grin- 
ning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha a of every 
fawning dean. In every high place, worship was paid 10 
to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch ; a and Eng- 
land propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with 
the blood of her best and bravest children. Crime 
succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the 
race accursed of God and man was a second time 15 
driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and 
to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the 
nations. 

Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made 
on the public character of Milton apply to him only as 20 
one of a large body. We shall proceed to notice some 
of the peculiarities which distinguished him from his 
contemporaries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary 
to take a short survey of the parties into which the 
political world was at that time divided. We must 25 
premise that our observations are intended to apply 
only to those who adhered, from a sincere preference, 
to one or to the other side. In days of public commo- 
tion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended 
by a crowd of camp-followers, a useless and heartless 30 



9& JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope 
of picking up something under its protection, but 
desert it in the day of battle, and often join to extermi- 
nate it after a defeat. England, at the time of which 
5 we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish politi- 
cians, who transferred their support to every govern- 
ment as it rose ; who kissed the hand of the king in 
1640, and spat in his face in 1649; wno shouted with 
equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated at West- 

10 minster Hall and when he was dug up to be hanged 
at Tyburn ; who dined on calves' heads, or stuck up 
oak-branches, as circumstances altered, without the 
slightest shame or repugnance. These we leave out 
of the account. We take our estimate of parties from 

15 those who really deserve to be called partisans. 

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most 
remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world 
has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous part 
of their character lie on the surface. He that runs 

20 may read them ; nor have there been wanting attentive 
and malicious observers to point them out. For many 
years after the Restoration they were the theme of 
unmeasured invective and derision. They were ex- 
posed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of 

25 the stage, at the time when the press and the stage 
were most licentious. They were not men of letters ; 
they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not de- 
fend themselves ; and the public would not take them 
under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, 

30 without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



99 



and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their 
dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff 
posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the 
Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every 
occasion, their contempt of human learning, their 5 
detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair 
game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers 
alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. 
And he who approaches this subject should carefully 
guard against the influence of that potent ridicule 10 
which has already misled so many excellent writers. 

" Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene: 
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene."* 15 

Those who roused the people to resistance; who 
directed their measures through a long series of 
eventful years ; who formed, out of the most unprom- 
ising materials, the finest army that Europe had ever 
seen ; who trampled down King, Church, and Arie- 20 
tocracy ; who, in the short intervals of domestic sedi- 
tion and rebellion, made the name of England terrible 
to every nation on the face of the earth — were no 
vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere 
external badges, like the signs of freemasonry or the 25 
dresses of friars. We regret that these badges were 
not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose 
courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable 
obligations had not the lofty elegance which distin- 



100 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

guished some of the adherents of Charles the First, 
or the easy good-breeding for which the court of 
Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must 
make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio a in the play, 
5 turn from the specious caskets which contain only the 
Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain 
leaden chest which conceals the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived 
a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of 

10 superior beings and eternal interests. Not content 
with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling 
Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to 
the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing 
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too 

15 minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, 
was with them the great, end of existence. They re- 
jected with contempt the ceremonious homage which 
other sects substituted for the pure worship of the 
soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the 

20 Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze 
full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune 
with him face to face. Hence originated their con- 
tempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference be- 
tween the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed 

25 to vanish when compared with the boundless interval 
which separated the whole race from him on whom 
their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recog- 
nized no title to superiority but his favor ; and, con- 
fident of that, favor, they despised all the accomplish- 

30 ments and all the dignities of the world. If they were 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. iol 

unacquainted with the works of philosophers and 
poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. 
If their names were not found in the registers of her- 
alds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their 
5 steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of 
menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over 
them. Their palaces were houses not made with 
hands ; their diadems crowns of glory which should 
never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on 

10 nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt ; 
for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious 
treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, 
nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests 
by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very 

15 meanest of them was a being to whose fate a myste- 
rious and terrible importance belonged ; on whose 
slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked 
with anxious interest ; who had been destined, before 
heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity 

20 which should continue when heaven and earth should 
have passed away. Events which short-sighted poli- 
ticians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained 
on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and 
flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty 

25 had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist 
and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by 
no common deliverer from the grasp of no common 
foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar 
agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for 

30 him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had 



102 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had 
shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God. 

Thus the, Puritan was made up of two different 
men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, 
5 passion, the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. 
He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker ; 
but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his 
devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, 
and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by 

10 glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of 
angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught 
a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming 
from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, a he 
thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the 

15 millennial year. Like Fleetwood/ he cried in the 
bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from 
him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt 
on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of 
the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. 

20 People who saw nothing of the godly but their un- 
couth visages, and heard nothing from them but their 
groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at 
them. But those had little reason to laugh who en- 
countered them in the hall of debate or in the field of 

25 battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military 
affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability 
of purpose which some writers have thought incon- 
sistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact 
the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their 

30 feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 103 

other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to 
itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had 
lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had 
their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their 
sorrows, but not for the things of this world. En- 5 
thusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their 
minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and 
raised them above the influence of danger and of cor- 
ruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue 
unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They 10 
went through the world, like Sir Artegal's a iron man 
Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down op- 
pressors, mingling with human beings, but having 
neither part nor lot in human infirmities ; insensible 
to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain ; not to be pierced 15 
by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. 

Such we believe to have been- the character of the 
Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their man- 
ners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic 
habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds 20 
was often injured by straining after things too high 
for mortal reach ; and we know that, in spite of their 
hatred of popery, they too often fell into the worst 
vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant 
austerity, that they had their anchorites and their 25 
ciusades, their Dunstans a and their De Montforts, a 
their Dominics a and their Escobars. a Yet, when all 
circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not 
hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, 
and a useful body. 30 



104 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty 
mainly because it was the cause of religion. There 
was another party, by no means numerous, but distin- 
guished by learning and ability, which acted with 
5 them on very different principles. We speak of those 
whom Cromwell was accustomed to call the Heathens, 
men who were, in the phraseology of that time, doubt- 
ing Thomases a or careless Gallios a with regard to relig- 
ious subjects, but passionate worshippers of freedom. 

10 Heated by the study of ancient literature, they set up 
their country as their idol, and proposed to themselves 
the heroes of Plutarch as their examples. They seem 
to have borne some resemblance to the Brissotines a of 
the French Revolution. But it is not very easy to 

15 draw the line of distinction between them and their 
devout associates, whose tone and manner they some- 
times found it convenient to affect, and sometimes, it 
is probable, imperceptibly adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt 

20 to speak of them, as we have spoken of their antago- 
nists, with perfect candor. We shall not charge upon 
a whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horse- 
boys, gamblers, and bravoes, whom the hope of license 
and plunder attracted from the dens of Whitefriars to 

25 the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their 
associates by excesses which, under the stricter disci- 
pline of the Parliamentary armies, were never toler- 
ated. We will select a more favorable specimen. 
Thinking as we do that the cause of the king was the 

30 cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot refrain 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 105 

from looking with complacency on the character of the 
honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national pride in 
comparing them with the instruments which the 
despots of other countries are compelled to employ, 
with the mutes who throng their antechambers, and 5 
the Janizaries a who mount guard at their gates. Our 
Royalist countrymen were not heartless, dangling 
courtiers, bowing at every step, and simpering at 
every word. They were not mere machines for de- 
struction, dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, 10 
intoxicated into valor, defending without love, de- 
stroying without hatred. There was a freedom in 
their subserviency, a nobleness in their very degrada- 
tion. The sentiment of individual independence was 
strong within them. They were indeed misled, but 15 
by no base or selfish motive. Compassion and roman- 
tic honor, the prejudices of childhood, and the vener- 
able names of history, threw over them a spell potent 
as that of Duessa ; a and, like the Redcross Knight, 
they thought that they were doing battle for an in- 20 
jured beauty, while they defended a false and loath- 
some sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered at all 
into the merits of the political question. It was not 
for a treacherous king or an intolerant church that 
they fought, but for the old banner which had waved 25 
in so many battles over the heads of their fathers, and 
for the altars at which they had received the hands 
of their brides. Though nothing could be more erron- 
eous than their political opinions, they possessed, in a 
far greater degree than their adversaries, those quali- 30 



lo6 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

ties which are the grace of private life. With many 
of the vices of the Round Table, they had also many 
of its virtues : courtesy, generosity, veracity, tender- 
ness, and respect for women. They had far more both 
5 of profound and of polite learning than the Puritans. 
Their manners were more engaging, their tempers 
more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and their 
households more cheerful. 

Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes 

10 which we have described. He was not a Puritan. He 
was not a freethinker. He was not a Royalist. In his 
character the noblest qualities of every party were 
combined in harmonious union. From the Parliament 
and from the court, from the conventicle and from the 

15 Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles 
of the Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of 
the hospitable Cavalier, his nature selected and drew 
to itself whatever was great and good, while it rejected 
all the base and pernicious ingredients by which those 

20 finer elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, he 
lived 

"As ever in his great taskmaster*^ eye."* 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on the 
Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he 
25 acquired their contempt of external circumstances, 
their fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible reso- 
lution. But not the coolest sceptic or the most pro- 
fane scoffer was more perfectly free from the conta- 
gion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



107 



their ludicrous jargon, their scorn of science, and their 
aversion to pleasure. Hating tyranny with a perfect 
hatred, he had, nevertheless, all the estimable and orna- 
mental qualities which were almost entirely monopo- 
lized by the party of the tyrant. There was none who 5 
had a stronger sense of the value of literature, a finer 
relish for every elegant amusement, or a more chival- 
rous delicacy of honor and love. Though his opinions 
were democratic, his tastes and his associations were 
such as best harmonize with monarchy and aristoc- 10 
racy. He was under the influence of all the feelings 
by which the gallant Cavaliers were misled. But of 
those feelings he was the master, and not the slave. 
Like the hero of Homer, a he enjoyed all the pleasures 
of fascination; but he was not fascinated. He lis- I5 
tened to the song of the Sirens ; yet he glided by 
without being seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted 
the cup of Circe ; but he bore about him a sure anti- 
dote against the effects of its bewitching sweetness. 
The illusions which captivated his imagination never ao 
impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman was 
proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the 
romance which enchanted the poet. Any person who 
will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises 
on Prelacy with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical 25 
architecture and music in the Penseroso, which was 
published about the same time, will understand our 
meaning. This is an inconsistency which, more than 
anything else, raises his character in our estimation, 
because it shows how many private tastes and feelings 30 



108 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

he sacrificed, in order to do what he considered his 
duty to mankind. It is the very struggle of the noble 
Othello. His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He 
does naught in hate, but all in honor. He kisses the 
5 beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. 

That from which the public character of Milton 
derives its great and peculiar splendor still remains to 
be mentioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a 
forsworn king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted 

10 himself in conjunction with others. But the glory of 
the battle which he fought for the species of freedom 
which is the most valuable, and which was then the 
least understood, the freedom of the human mind, is 
all his own. Thousands and tens of thousands among 

15 his contemporaries raised their voices against ship- 
money and the Star Chamber. But there were few 
indeed who discerned the more fearful evils of moral 
and intellectual slavery, and the benefits which would 
result from liberty of the press and the unfettered 

20 exercise of private judgment. These were the objects 
which Milton justly conceived to be the most im- 
portant. He was desirous that the people should think 
for themselves as well as tax themselves, and should 
be emancipated from the dominion of prejudice as well 

25 as from that of Charles. He knew that those who, 
with the best intentions, overlooked these schemes of 
reform, and contented themselves with pulling down 
the king and imprisoning the malignants, acted like 
the heedless brothers in his own poem, who, in their 

3 o eagerness to disperse the train of the sorcerer, 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 



109 



neglected the means of liberating the captive. They 
thought only of conquering when they should have 
thought of disenchanting. 

5 " Oh, ye mistook ! Ye should have snatched his wand 
And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless." 11 

10 To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to 
break the ties which bound a stupefied people to the 
seat of enchantment, was the noble aim of Milton. To 
this all his public conduct was directed. For this he 
joined the Presbyterians ; for this he forsook them. 

I5 He fought their perilous battle; but he turned away 
with disdain from their insolent triumph. He saw 
that they, like those whom they had vanquished, were 
hostile to the liberty of thought. He therefore joined 
the Independents, and called upon Cromwell to break 

20 the secular chain, and to save free conscience from the 
paw of the Presbyterian wolf. With a view to the 
same great object, he attacked the licensing system, in 
that sublime treatise which every statesman should 
wear as a sign upon his hand and as frontlets between 
his eyes. His attacks were, in general, directed less 
against particular abuses than against those deeply 
seated errors on which almost all abuses are founded, 
the servile worship of eminent men and the irrational 
dread of innovation. 

30 That he might shake the foundations of these de- 



HO JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

basing sentiments more effectually, he always selected 
for himself the boldest literary services. He never 
came up in the rear, when the outworks had been 
carried and the breach entered. He pressed into the 
5 forlorn hope. a At the beginning of the changes, he 
wrote with incomparable energy and eloquence against 
the bishops. But when his opinion seemed likely to 
prevail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned 
prelacy to the crowd of writers who now hastened to 

10 insult a falling party. There is no more hazardous 
enterprise than that of bearing the torch of truth into 
those dark and infected recesses in which no light has 
ever shone. But it was the choice and the pleasure 
of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors, and to 

I5 brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disap- 
prove of his opinions must respect the hardihood with 
which he maintained them. He, in general, left to 
others the credit of expounding and defending the 
popular parts of his religious and political creed. He 

20 took his own stand upon those which the great body 
of his countrymen reprobated as criminal, or derided 
as paradoxical. He stood up for divorce and regicide. 
He attacked the prevailing systems of education. His 
radiant and beneficent career resembled that of the 

god of light and fertility. 

25 ■ 

" Nitor in adversum ; nee me, qui caetera, vincit 
Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi." a 

It is to be regretted that the prose writings of 
Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As com- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 1 1 1 

positions, they deserve the attention of every man who 
wishes to become acquainted with the full power of 
the English language. They abound with passages 
compared with which the finest declamations of Burke 
sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of 5 
cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous em- 
broidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Para- 
dise Lost has the great poet ever risen higher than in 
those parts of his controversial works in which h : s 
feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of 10 
devotional and lyrical rapture. It is, to borrow his 
own majestic language, "a sevenfold chorus of halle- 
lujahs and harping symphonies." 

We had intended* to look more closely at these per- 
formances, to analyze the peculiarities of the diction, 15 
to dwell at some length on the sublime wisdom of the 
Areopagitica and the nervous rhetoric of the Icono- 
clast, and to point out some of those magnificent pas- 
sages which occur in the Treatise of Reformation, 
and the Animadversions on the Remonstrant. But 20 
the length to which our remarks have already ex- 
tended renders this impossible. 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear 
ourselves away from the subject. The days imme- 
diately following the publication of this relic of Milton 25 
appear to be peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to 
his memory. And we shall scarcely be censured if, 
on this his festival, we be found lingering near his 
shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering 
which we bring to it. While this book lies on our 30 



112 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

table, we seem to be contemporaries of the writer. 
We are transported a hundred and fifty years back. 
We can almost fancy that we are visiting him in his 
small lodging ; that we see him sitting at the old organ 
5 beneath the faded green hangings ; that we can catch 
the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling in vain to find 
the day ; that we are reading in the lines of his noble 
countenance the proud and mournful history of his 
glory and his affliction. We image to ourselves the 
10 breathless silence in which we should listen to his 
slightest word, the passionate veneration with which 
we should kneel to kiss his hand and weep upon it, 
the earnestness with which we should endeavor to 
console him, if indeed such a spirit could need conso- 
ls lation, for the neglect of an age unworthy of his 
talents and his virtues, the eagerness with which we 
should contest with his daughters, or with his Quaker 
friend Elwood, the privilege of reading Homer to 
him, or of taking down the immortal accents which 
20 flowed from his lips. 

These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot 
be ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we 
have written shall in any degree excite them in other 
minds. We are not much in the habit of idolizing 
25 either the living or the dead. And we think that 
there is no more certain indication of a weak and ill- 
regulated intellect than that propensity which, for 
want of a better name, we will venture to christen 
Boswellism. a But there are a few characters which 
30 have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. 113 

which have been tried in the furnace and have proved 
pure, which have been weighed in the balance and 
have not been, found wanting, which have been de- 
clared sterling by the general consent of mankind, 
and which are visibly stamped with the image and 5 
superscription of the Most High. These great men 
we trust that we know how to prize ; and of these was 
Milton. The sight of his books, the sound of his 
name, are pleasant to us. His thoughts resemble those 
celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr 10 
of Massinger a sent down from the gardens of Para- 
dise to the earth, and which were distinguished from 
the productions of other soils, not only by superior 
bloom and sweetness, but by miraculous efficacy to in- 
vigorate and to heal. They are powerful, not only to 15 
delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy 
the man who can study either the life or the writings 
of the great poet and patriot without aspiring to 
emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his 
genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with 20 
which he labored for the public good, the fortitude 
with which he endured every private calamity, the 
lofty disdain with which he looked down on tempta 
tions and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to 
bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly 2 , 
kept with his country and with his fame. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



[ "5 ] 



The Life and Writings of 
Addison. 

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, JULY, 1843.} 



The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin, 2 vols., 
8vo. London, 1843. 

SOME reviewers are of opinion that a lady who 
dares to publish a book renounces by that act the 
franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim no 5 
exemption from the utmost rigor of critical procedure. 
From that opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, 
that in a country which boasts of many female writers, 
eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements 
to influence the public mind, it would be of most IO 
pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or un- 
sound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncen- 
sured, merely because the offender chanced to be a 
lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic 
would do well to imitate the courteous knight a who I 5 
found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists 
against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended suc- 
cessfully the cause of which he was the champion ; but 
before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a 
[ 117 ] 



u8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the 
point and edge. 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities 
which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of 
5 her works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs 
of the Reign of James the First, have fully entitled her 
to the privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of 
those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, 
when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject or 

10 from the indolence too often produced by success, they 
happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe 
discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict 
upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be re- 
minded by a gentle touch, like that with which the 

15 Laputan flapper a roused his dreaming lord, that it is 
high time to wake. 

Our readers will probably infer from what we have 
said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The 
truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her sub- 

20 ject. No person who is not familiar with the political 
and literary history of England during the reigns of 
William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First 
can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we 
mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think 

25 that we pay her a compliment, when we say that her 
studies have taken a different direction. She is better 
acquainted with Shakespeare and Raleigh than with 
Congreve and Prior ; and is far more at home among 
the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's a than 

30 among the Steenkirks a and flowing periwigs which 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 119 

surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hampton. She 
seems to have written about the Elizabethan age be- 
cause she had read much about it ; she seems, on the 
other hand, to have read a little about the age of Ad- 
dison because she had determined to write about it. 5 
The consequence is, that she has had to describe men 
and things without having either a correct or a vivid 
idea of them, and that she has often fallen into errors 
of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss 
Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm IO 
of Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition 
of this work may probably be required. If so, we 
hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that 
every date and fact about which there can be the 
smallest doubt will be carefully verified. I5 

To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as 
much like affection as any sentiment can be which is 
inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and 
twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, how- 
ever, that this feeling will not betray us into that 20 
abject idolatry which we have often had occasion to 
reprehend in others, and which seldom fails to make 
both the idolater and the idol ridiculous. A man of 
genius and virtue is but a man. All his powers cannot 
be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him 
perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesi- 
tate to admit that Addison has left us some composi- 
tions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic 
poems hardly equal to Parnell's, a some criticism as 
superficial as Dr. Blair's, a and a tragedy not very much y> 



120 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

better than Dr. Johnson's. a It is praise enough to 
say of a writer that, in a high department of literature, 
in which many eminent writers have distinguished 
themselves, he has had no equal ; and this may with 
5 strict justice be said of Addison. 

As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration 

■ which he received from those who, bewitched by his 
fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts 
of life to his generous and delicate friendship, wor- 

10 shiped him nightly in his favorite temple at Button's.* 
But after full inquiry and impartial reflection, we have 
long been convinced that he deserved as much love 
and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our 
infirm and erring race. Some blemishes may un- 

15 doubtedly be detected in his character; but the more 
carefully it is examined, the more will it appear, to 
use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the 
noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cow- 
ardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may 

20 easily be named in whom some particular good dispo- 
sition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. 
But the just harmony of qualities, the exact temper 
between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual 
observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, 

25 but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from 
all men who have been tried by equally strong tempta- 
tions, and about whose conduct we possess equally full 
information. 

His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, 

30 who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 121 

some figure in the world, and occupies with credit two 
folio pages in the Biographia Britannica. Lancelot 
was sent up as a poor scholar from Westmoreland to 
Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the Common- 
wealth ; made some progress in learning ; became, 5 
like most of his fellow-students, a violent Royalist ; 
lampooned the heads of the university, and was forced 
to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had 
left college he earned a humble subsistence by reading 
the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families of 10 
those sturdy squires whose manor-houses were scat- 
tered over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration 
his loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to 
the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to 
France he lost his employment. But Tangier had been 15 
ceded by Portugal to England as part of the marriage 
portion of the Infanta Catharine ; a and to Tangier 
Lancelot Addison was sent. A more miserable situa- 
tion can hardly be conceived. It was difficult to say 
whether the unfortunate settlers were more tormented 20 
by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the 
wall or by the Moors without it. One advantage the 
chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity 
of studying the history and manners of Jews and 
Mahometans ; and of this opportunity he appears to 25 
have made excellent use. On his return to England, 
after some years of banishment, he published an in- 
teresting volume on the Polity and Religion of Bar- 
bary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the 
State of Rabbinical Learning, He rose to eminence in 30 



122 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

his profession, and became one of the royal chaplains, 
a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and 
Dean of Lichfield. It it said that he would have been 
made a bishop after the Revolution if he had not given 

5 offence to the government by strenuously opposing, 
in the Convocation of i689, a the liberal policy of Wil- 
liam and Tillotson. 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from 
Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's child- 

10 hood we know little. He learned his rudiments at 
schools in his father's neighborhood, and was then 
sent to the Charterhouse. 3 The anecdotes which are 
popularly related about his boyish tricks do not har- 
monize very well with what we know of his riper 

15 years. There remains a tradition that he was the 
ringleader in a barring out, and another tradition that 
he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, 
where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till, 
after a long search, he was discovered and brought 

20 home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to 
know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enter- 
prising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and 
most modest of men. 

We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's 

25 pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigor- 
ously and successfully. At fifteen he was not only fit 
for the university, but carried thither a classical taste 
and a stock of learning which would have done honor 
to a Master of Arts. He was entered at Queen's Col- 

3 o lege, Oxford ; but he had not been many months there 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 123 

when some of his Latin verses fell by accident into 
the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magdalen a Col- 
lege. The young scholar's diction and versification 
were already such as veteran professors might envy. 
Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such 5 
promise ; nor was an opportunity long wanting. The 
Revolution had just taken place ; and nowhere had it 
been hailed with more delight than at Magdalen Col- 
lege. That great and opulent corporation had been 
treated by James and by his Chancellor 3 with an inso- 10 
lence and injustice which, even in such a prince and in 
such a minister, may justly excite amazement, and 
which had done more than even the prosecution of 
the bishops to alienate the Church of England from 
the throne. A president, duly elected, had been vio- 15 
lently expelled from his dwelling; a Papist had been 
set over the society by a royal mandate ; the fellows, 
who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused to 
submit to this usurper, had been driven forth from 
their quiet cloisters and gardens to die of want or to 20 
live on charity. But the day of redress and retribu- 
tion speedily came. The intruders were ejected ; the 
venerable house was again inhabited by its old in- 
mates ; learning flourished under the rule of the wise 
and virtuous Hough ; and with learning was united a 25 
mild and liberal spirit too often wanting in the 
princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of the 
troubles through which the society had passed, there 
had been no valid election of new members during the 
year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there was twice the 30 



I2 4 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

ordinary number of vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lan- 
caster found it easy to procure for his young 
friend admittance to the advantages of a founda- 
tion then generally esteemed the wealthiest in Eu- 

5 rope. 

At Magdalen Addison resided during ten years. 
He was at first one of those scholars who are called 
demies, a but was subsequently elected a fellow. His 
college is still proud of his name ; his portrait still 

10 hangs in the hall ; and strangers are still told that his 
favorite walk was under the elms which fringe the 
meadow on the banks of the Cher well. It is said, and 
is highly probable, that he was distinguished among 
his fellow-students by the delicacy of his feelings, by 

15 the shyness of his manners, and by the assiduity with 
which he often prolonged his studies far into the night. 
It is certain that his reputation for ability and learning 
stood high. Many years later the ancient doctors of 
Magdalen continued to talk in their common room of 

20 his boyish compositions, and expressed their sorrow 
that no copy of exercises so remarkable had been pre- 
served. It is proper, however, to remark that Miss 
Aikin has committed the error, very pardonable in a 
lady, of overrating Addison's classical attainments. 

25 In one department of learning, indeed, his proficiency 
was such as it is hardly possible to overrate. His 
knowledge of the Latin poets, a from Lucretius and 
Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was sin- 
gularly exact and profound. He understood them 

30 thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had the finest 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 125 

and most discriminating perception of all their pecu- 
liarities of style and melody ; nay, he copied their 
manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, 
all their British imitators who had preceded him, 
Buchanan* and Milton alone excepted. This is high 5 
praise; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. 
It is clear that Addison's serious attention during his 
residence at the university was almost entirely con- 
centrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not 
wholly neglect other provinces of ancient literature, 10 
he vouchsafed to them only a cursory glance. He 
does not appear to have attained more than an ordi- 
nary acquaintance with the political and moral writers 
of Rome ; nor was his own Latin prose by any means 
equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, 15 
though doubtless such as was in his time thought 
respectable at Oxford, was evidently less than that 
which many lads now carry away every year from 
Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of his 
works, if we had time to make such an examination, 20 
would fully bear out these remarks. We will briefly 
advert to a few of the facts on which our judgment is 
grounded. 

Great praise is due to the notes which Addison 
appended to his version of the second and third books 25 
of the Metamorphoses. 3 - Yet those notes, while they 
show him to have been, in his own domain, an accom- 
plished scholar, show also how confined that domain 
was. They are rich in apposite references to Virgil, a 
Statius, a and Claudian ; a but they contain not a single 30 



126 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

illustration drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if in 
the whole compass of Latin literature there be a pas- 
sage which stands in need of illustration drawn from 
the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the third 

5 book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for 
that story of Euripides a and Theocritus, a both of whom 
he has sometimes followed minutely. But neither to 
Euripides nor to Theocritus does Addison make the 
faintest allusion ; and we therefore believe that we do 

10 not wrong him by supposing that he had little or no 
knowledge of their works. 

His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical 
quotations, happily introduced ; but scarcely one of 
those quotations is in prose. He draws more illus- 

15 trations from Ausonius a and Manilius a than from 
Cicero. a Even his notions of the political and military 
affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets 
and poetasters. Spots made memorable by events 

' which have changed the destinies of the world, and 

f^o which have been worthily recorded by great histo- 
rians, bring to his mind only scraps of some ancient 
versifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he naturally 
remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army* 
endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narra- 

25 tive of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, 
but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the 
banks of the Rubicon 3 he never thinks of Plutarch's 
lively description, or of the stern conciseness of the 
Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so 

30 forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



127 



sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority 
for the events of the Civil War is Lucan. a 

All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Flor- 
ence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without 
recalling one single verse of Pindar, a of Callimachus, a 5 
or of the Attic dramatists ; a but they brought to his 
recollection innumerable passages of Horace, a Juve- 
nal, 1 Statius, a and Ovid. a 

The same may be said of the Treatise on Medals.* 
In that pleasing work we find about three hundred 10 
passages extracted with great judgment from the 
Roman poets ; but we do not recollect a single pas- 
sage taken from any Roman orator or historian, and 
we are confident that not a line is quoted from any 
Greek writer. No person who had derived all his 15 
information on the subject of medals frorh Addison 
would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical 
interest equal, and in beauty of execution far superior, 
to those of Rome. 

If it were necessary to find any further proof that 20 
Addison's classical knowledge was confined within 
narrow limits, that proof would be furnished by his 
Essay on the Evidences of Christianity. The Roman 
poets throw little or no light on the literary and his- 
torical questions which he is under the necessity of 25 
examining in that essay. He is, therefore, left com- 
pletely in the dark ; and it is melancholy to see how 
helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. 
He assigns as grounds for his religious belief stories 
as absurd as that of the Cock Lane ghost, a and forg- 3Q 



i 2 8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

eries as rank as Ireland's* 1 Vortigern ; puts faith in 
the lie about the Thundering Legion ; a is convinced 
that Tiberius a moved the Senate to admit Jesus among 
the gods ; and pronounces the letter of Abgarus, a King 
5 of Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor were 
these errors the effects of superstition ; for to super- 
stition Addison was by no means prone. The truth is, 
that he was writing about what he did not understand. 
Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from which it 

10 appears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was 
one of several writers whom the booksellers engaged 
to make an English version of Herodotus ; a and she 
infers that he must have been a good Greek scholar. 
We can allow very little weight to this argument when 

15 we consider that his fellow-laborers were to have been 
Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly 
as the nominal author of the worst book on Greek 
history and philology that ever was printed ; and this 
book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to produce without 

20 help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the ancient 
tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, 
he has confounded an aphorism with an apothegm, a 
and that when, in his verse, he treats of classical 
subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with four 

25 false quantities to a page. 

It is probable that the classical acquirements of 
Addison were of as much service to him as if they had 
been more extensive. The world generally gives its 
admiration, not to the man who does what nobody else 

30 even attempts to do, but to the man who does best 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



129 



what multitudes do well. Bentley a was so immeasur- 
ably superior to all the other scholars of his time that 
few among them could discover his superiority. But 
the accomplishment in which Addison excelled his 
contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued 5 
and assiduously cultivated at all English seats of 
learning. Everybody who had been at a public school 
had written Latin verses ; many had written such 
verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to 
appreciate, though by no means able to rival, the 10 
skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines 
on the Barometer and the Bowling Green were ap- 
plauded by hundreds to whom the Dissertation on the 
Epistles of Phalaris was as unintelligible as the hiero- 
glyphics on an obelisk. 15 

Purity of style and an easy flow of numbers are 
common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favorite 
piece is the Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies, for in 
that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor 
which many years later enlivened thousands of break- 2 o 
fast tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to 
steal a hint ; and he certainly owed as little to his 
predecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot 
help suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps uncon- 
sciously, one of the happiest touches in his voyage to 25 
Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers 
judge. 

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about 
the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which 
alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." 30 



130 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels ap- 
peared, Addison wrote these lines : 

" Jamque acies inter mediae sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, maj estate verendus, 
5 Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 

Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." a 

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and 
justly admired both at Oxford and Cambridge before 
his name had ever been heard by the wits who 

10 thronged the coffee-houses round Drury Lane Thea- 
tre. In his twenty-second year he ventured to appear 
before the public as a writer of English verse. He 
addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, 
after many triumphs and many reverses, had at length 

15 reached a secure and lonely eminence among the 
literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have 
been much gratified by the young scholar's praise ; 
and an interchange of civilities and good offices fol- 
lowed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden 

20 to Congreve, and was certainly presented by Congreve 
( to Charles Montagu, who was then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer and leader of the Whig party in the House 
of Commons. 

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote him- 

25 self to poetry. He published a translation of part of 
the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other 
performances of equal value ; that is to say, of no 
value at all. But in those days the public was in the 
habit of receiving with applause pieces which would 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 131 

now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate 
prize" or the Seatonian prize. a And the reason is 
obvious. The heroic couplet a was then the favorite 
measure. The art of arranging words in that meas- 
ure, so that the lines may flow smoothly, that the ac- 5 
cents may fall correctly, that the rimes may strike the 
ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end 
of every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of 
mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be 
learned by any human being who has sense enough to 10 
learn anything. But, like other mechanical arts, it 
was gradually improved by means of many experi- 
ments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope 
to discover the trick, to make himself complete master 
of it, and to teach it to everybody else. From the time 15 
when his Pastorals appeared, heroic versification be- 
came matter of rule and compass ; and before long all 
artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who 
never blundered on one happy thought or expression 
were able to write reams of couplets which, as far as 20 
euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished 
from those of Pope himself, and which very clever 
writers of the reign of Charles the Second — Roches- 
ter, for example, or Marvel, or Oldham — would have 
contemplated with admiring despair. 25 

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small 
man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned 
how to manufacture decasyllable verses, and poured 
them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all 
as well turned, as smooth, an4 as like each other as 3q 



132 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunei's 
mill in the dockyards at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic 
couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an un- 
practised hand with a blunt hatchet. Take as a speci- 
5 men his translation of a celebrated passage in the 
ffineid:* 

" This child our parent earth, stirred up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 

10 That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 
And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 

j. In the report, as many tongues she wears." 

Compare with these jagged, misshapen distichs the 
neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in un- 
limited abundance. We take the first lines on which 
we open in his version of Tasso. They are neither 
20 better nor worse than the rest : 

" O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, 
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
25 If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 

The current pass, and seek the further shore." 

Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut 

of lines of this sort ; and we are now as little disposed 

to admire a man for being able to write them as for 

30 being able to write his name. But in the days of 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 133 

William the Third such versification was rare ; and a 
rimer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, 
just as in the dark ages a person who could write his 
name passed for a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke, a 
Stepney, 8 Granville,* Walsh, a and others, whose only 5 
title to fame was that they said in tolerable meter 
what might have been as well said in prose, or what 
was not worth saying at all, were honored with marks 
of distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. 
With these Addison must have ranked, if he had not 10 
earned true and lasting glory by performances which 
very little resembled his juvenile poems. 

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained 
from Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In 
return for this service, and for other services of the 15 
same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the 
translation of the fflneid, complimented his young 
friend with great liberality, and indeed with more 
liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid 
that his own performance would not sustain a com- 20 
parison with the version of the fourth Georgic by "the 
most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." "After his 
bees,"* added Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely 
worth the hiving." 

The time had now arrived when it was necessary 25 
for Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed 
to point his course towards the clerical profession. 
His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His 
college had large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, 
and boasts that it has given at least one bishop to 30 



I34 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison 
held an honorable place in the Church, and had set his 
heart on seeing his son a clergyman. It is clear, from 
some expressions in the young man's rimes, that his 
5 intention was to take orders. But Charlas Montagu 
interfered. Montagu had first brought himself into 
notice by verses, well-timed and not contemptibly 
written, but never, we think, rising above mediocrity. 
Fortunately for himself and for his country, he early 

10 quitted poetry, in which he could never have attained 
a rank as high as that of Dorset a or Rochester, 3 and 
turned his mind to official and parliamentary business. 
It is written that the ingenious person who undertook 
to instruct Rasselas," prince of Abyssinia, in the art 

15 of flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, 
sprang into the air, and instantly dropped into the 
lake. But it is added that the wings which were 
unable to support him through the sky, bore him up 
effectually as soon as he was in the water. This is 

20 no bad type of the fate of Charles Montagu, and of 
men like him. When he attempted to soar into the 
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed ; but 
as soon as he had descended from that ethereal eleva- 
tion into a lower and grosser element, his talents 

25 instantly raised him above the mass. He became a 
distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and party 
leader. He still retained his fondness for the pursuits 
of his early days ; but he showed that fondness, not 
by wearying the public with his own feeble perform- 

30 ances, but by discovering and encouraging literary 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 135 

excellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who 
would easily have vanquished him as a competitor, 
revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for 
the encouragement of learning, he was cordially sup- 
ported by the ablest and most virtuous of his col- 5 
leagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. a Though both 
these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it 
was not solely from a love of letters that they were 
desirous to enlist youths of high intellectual qualifica- 
tions in the public service. The Revolution had 10 
altered the whole system of government. Before that 
event the press had been controlled by censors, and 
the parliament had sat only two months in eight years. 
Now the press was free, and had begun to exercise 
unprecedented influence on the public mind. Parlia- 15 
ment met annually and sat long. The chief power in 
the State had passed to the House of Commons. At 
such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary and 
oratorical talents should rise in value. There was 
danger that a government which neglected such 20 
talents might be subverted by them. It was, therefore, 
a profound and enlightened policy which led Montagu 
and Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, 
by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. 

It is remarkable that in a neighboring country we 25 
have recently seen similar effects follow from similar 
causes. The Revolution of July, 1830, established 
representative government in France. The men of 
letters* instantly rose to the highest importance in the 
State. At the present moment, most of the persons 30 



136 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

whom we see at the head both of the Administration 
and of the Opposition have been professors, historians, 
journalists, poets. The influence of the literary class 
in England during the generation which followed the 
5 Revolution was great, but by no means so great as it 
has lately been in France ; for in England the aris- 
tocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful 
and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. 
France had no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep 

10 down her Addisons and Priors. 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just 
completed his twenty-seventh year, that the course of 
his life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs 
of the Ministry were kindly disposed towards him. 

15 In political opinions he already was what he continued 
to be through life, a firm, though a moderate, Whig. 
He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of 
his early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated 
to Montagu a Latin poem, truly Virgilian both in style 

20 and rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish of 
the young poet's great friends was, it should seem, to 
employ him in the service of the Crown abroad. But 
an intimate knowledge of the French language was 
a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist ; and 

25 this qualification Addison had not acquired. It was, 
therefore, thought desirable that he should pass some 
time on the Continent in preparing himself for official 
employment. His own means were not such as would 
enable him to travel ; but a pension of three hundred 

30 pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 137 

the Lord Chancellor. It seems to have been appre- 
hended that some difficulty might be started by the 
rulers of Magdalen College. But the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. 
The State — such was the purport of Montagu's letter — 5 
could not, at that time, spare to the Church such a man 
as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already 
occupied by adventurers, who, destitute of every liberal 
art and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the 
country which they pretended to serve. It had become 10 
necessary to recruit for the public service from a very 
different class — from that class of which Addison was 
the representative. The close of the Minister's letter 
was remarkable. "I am called," he said, "an enemy 
of the Church. But I will never do it any other injury I5 
than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." 

This interference was successful ; and in the sum- 
mer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, 
and still retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved 
Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed from 2 o 
Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received 
there with great kindness and politeness by a kinsman 
of his friend Montagu, Charles, Earl of Manchester, 
who had just been appointed Ambassador to the Court 
of France. The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was 25 
probably as gracious as her lord ; for Addison long 
retained an agreeable recollection of the impression 
which she at this time made on him, and, in some 
lively lines written on the glasses of the Kit-Cat Club, a 
described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with 3Q 



138 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

the genuine bloom of England, had excited among 
the painted beauties of Versailles. 

Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the 
vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in 
5 reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile lit- 
erature of France had changed its character to suit 
the changed character of the prince. No book ap- 
peared that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who 
was just dead, had passed the close of his life in writ- 

10 ing sacred dramas ; and Dacier was seeking for the 
Athanasian mysteries* in Plato. Addison described 
this state of things in a short but lively and graceful 
letter to Montagu. Another letter, written about the 
same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the 

15 strongest assurances of gratitude and attachment. 
"The only return I can make to your lordship," said 
Addison, "will be to apply myself entirely to my busi- 
ness." With this view he quitted Paris and repaired 
to Blois, a place where it was supposed that the 

so French language was spoken in its highest purity, and 
where not a single Englishman could be found. Here 
he passed" some months pleasantly and profitably. Of 
his way of life at Blois, one of his associates, an abbe 
named Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph 

25 Spence. If this account is to be trusted, Addison 
studied much, mused much, talked little, had fits of 
absence, and either had no love affairs or was too 
discreet to confide them to the abbe. A man who, even 
when surrounded by fellow-countrymen and fellow- 

3 o students, had always been remarkably shy and silent. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 139 

was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue 
and among foreign companions. But it is clear from 
Addison's letters, some of which were long after pub- 
lished in the Guardian, that, while he appeared to be 
absorbed in his own meditations, he was really observ- 5 
ing French society with that keen and sly, yet not 
ill-natured, side-glance which was peculiarly his own. 
From Blois he returned to Paris ; and having now 
mastered the French language, found great pleasure 
in the society of French philosophers and poets. He 10 
gave an account in a letter to Bishop Hough of two 
highly interesting conversations, one with Male- 
branche," the other with Boileau. a Malebranche ex- 
pressed great partiality for the English, and extolled 
the genius of Newton, but shook his head when 15 
Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so unjust as 
to call the author of the Leviathan* a poor, silly crea- 
ture. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully 
relating, in his letter, the circumstances of his intro- 
duction to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the 20 
friends and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melan- 
choly, lived in retirement, seldom w r ent either to Court 
or to the Academy, and was almost inaccessible to 
strangers. Of the English and of English literature 
he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the name of 25 
Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the warmth of 
their patriotism, have asserted that this ignorance 
must have been affected. We own that we see no 
ground for such a supposition. English literature 
was to the French of the age of Louis the Fourteenth 30 



140 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

what German literature was to our own grandfathers. 
Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men who, 
sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester 
Square with Sir Joshua, a or at Streatham with Mrs. 

5 Thrale, a had the slightest notion that Wieland a was 
one of the first wits and poets, and Lessing a beyond all 
dispute the first critic, in Europe. Boileau knew just 
as little about the Paradise Lost and about Absalom 
and Achitophel; 3 - but he had read Addison's Latin 

10 poems, and admired them greatly. They had given 
him, he said, quite a new notion of the state of learn- 
ing and taste among the English. Johnson will have 
it that these praises were insincere. "Nothing," says 
he, "is better known of Boileau than that he had an 

15 injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin; 
and therefore his profession of regard was probably 
the effect of his civility rather than approbation." 
Now, nothing is better known of Boileau than that he 
was singularly sparing of compliments. We do not 

20 remember that either friendship or fear ever induced 
him to bestow praise on any composition which he did 
not approve. On literary questions, his caustic, dis- 
dainful, and self-confident spirit rebelled against that 
authority to which everything else in France bowed 

25 down. He had the spirit to tell Louis the Fourteenth 
firmly, and even rudely, that his Majesty knew no- 
thing about poetry, and admired verses which were 
detestable. What was there in Addison's position that 
could induce the satirist, whose stern and fastidious 

3 o temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 141 

sycophant for the first and last time? Nor was Boi- 
leau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious 
or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the 
first order would ever be written in a dead language. 
And did he think amiss? Has not the experience of 5 
centuries confirmed his opinion? Boileau also 
thought it probable that, in the best modern Latin, a 
writer of the Augustan age would have detected ludi- 
crous improprieties. And who can think otherwise? 
What modern scholar can honestly declare that he sees 10 
the smallest impurity in the style of Livy? Yet is it 
not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, a whose 
taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, de- 
tected the inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any 
modern scholar understood Latin better than Frederic 15 
the Great a understood French? Yet is it not notorious 
that Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking, writ- 
ing French, and nothing but French, during more 
than half a century, after unlearning his mother 
tongue in order to learn French, after living famil- 20 
iarly during many years with French associates, could 
not, to the last, compose in French without imminent 
risk of committing some mistake which would have 
moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris? Do we 
believe that Erasmus a and Fracastorius a wrote Latin 25 
as well as Dr. Robertson a and Sir Walter Scott wrote 
English? And are there not in the Dissertation on 
India, the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in Waverley, 
in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a London appren- 
tice would laugh? But does it follow, because we 30 



142 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the 
noble alcaics of Gray, a or in the playful elegiacs of 
Vincent Bourne ? a Surely not. Nor was Boileau so 
ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating 
5 good modern Latin. In the very letter to which 
Johnson alludes, Boileau says: "Ne croyez pas a pour- 
tant que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que 
vous m'avez envoyes d'un de vos illustres academi- 
ciens. Je les ai trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida 

10 et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile." a 
Several poems in modern Latin have been praised by 
Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to praise 
anything. He says, for example, of the Pere Fra- 
guier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to have come to 

J 5 life again. But the best proof that Boileau did not 
feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin 
verses which has been imputed to him is that he wrote 
and published Latin verses in several meters. Indeed, 
it happens, curiously enough, that the most severe 

20 censure ever pronounced by him on modern Latin is 
conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the frag- 
ment which begins — 

" Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 

Musa, jubes?" a 



25 



For these reasons we feel assured that the praise 
which Boileau bestowed on the Machinae Gesticn- 
lantes* and the Gerano-Pygmaeomachia* was sincere. 
He certainly opened himself to Addison with a free- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 143 

dom which was a sure indication of esteem. Litera- 
ture was the chief subject of conversation. The old 
man talked on his favorite theme much and well — in- 
deed, as his young hearer thought, incomparably well. 
Boileau had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a 5 
great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had 
strong sense. His literary code was formed on nar- 
row principles ; but in applying it he showed great 
judgment and penetration. In mere style, abstracted 
from the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste 10 
was excellent. He was well acquainted with the great 
Greek writers, and, though unable fully to appreciate 
their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity 
of their manner, and had learned from them to despise 
bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover in 15 
the Spectator and the Guardian traces of the influence, 
in part salutary and in part pernicious, which the mind 
of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 

While Addison was at Paris, an event took place 
which made that capital a disagreeable residence for 20 
an Englishman and a Whig. Charles, second of the 
name, King of Spain, died, and bequeathed his do- 
minions to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of 
the Dauphin. The King of France, in direct violation 
of his engagements, both with Great Britain and with 25 
the States-General, accepted the bequest on behalf of 
his grandson. The House of Bourbon was at the 
summit of human grandeur. England had been out- 
witted, and found herself in a situation at once 
degrading and perilous. The people of France, not 30 



I 44 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

presaging the calamities by which they were destined 
to expiate the perfidy of their sovereign, went mad 
with pride and delight. Every man looked as if a 
great estate had just been left him. "The French 
5 conversation," said Addison, "begins to grow insup- 
portable ; that which was before the vainest nation 
in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the 
arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably 
foreseeing that the peace between France and Eng- 

10 land could not be of long duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December, 1700, 1 he embarked at Marseilles. As 

he glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted 

by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained 

their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon* how- 

15 ever, he encountered one of the black storms of the 
Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave up all 
for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who hap- 
pened to be on board. The English heretic, in the 
meantime, fortified himself against the terrors of death 

20 with devotions of a very different kind. How strong 
an impression this perilous voyage made on him ap- 
pears from the ode, "How are Thy Servants Blest, O 
Lord !" which was long after published in the Specta- 
tor. After some days of discomfort and danger, Ad- 

25 * It is strange that Addison should, in the first lines of his 
travels, have misdated his departure from Marseilles by a 
whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the pen, 
which throws the whole narrative into inextricable confusion, 
should have been repeated in a succession of editions, and 

30 never detected by Tickell or Hurd. — Macanlay. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 145 

dison was glad to land at Savona, and to make his 
way, over mountains where no road had yet been 
hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the 
nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of 5 
Gold, Addison made a short stay. He admired the 
narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering 
palaces, the walls rich with frescos, the gorgeous 
temple of the Annunciation, and the tapestries 
whereon were recorded the long glories of the House 10 
of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he 
contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral 
with more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake 
Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves 
raging as they raged when Virgil looked upon them. I5 
At Venice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveler 
spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in 
the midst of masks, dances, and serenades. Here he 
was at once diverted and provoked by the absurd 
dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Italian stage. 2 o 
To one of those pieces, however, he was indebted for 
a valuable hint. a He was present when a ridiculous 
play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it 
seems, was in love with a daughter of Scipio. The 
lady had given her heart to Caesar. The rejected lover 25 
determined to destroy himself. He appeared seated 
in his library, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a 
Tasso before him ; and in this position he pronounced 
a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are sur- 
prised that so remarkable a circumstance as this 30 



I46 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biog- 
raphers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest 
doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and 
anachronisms, struck the traveler's imagination, and 

5 suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the 
English stage. It is well known that about this time 
he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first 
four acts before he returned to England. 

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn 

10 some miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see the 
smallest independent state in Europe. On a rock 
where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was 
now far advanced, was perched the little fortress of 
San Marino. The roads which led to the secluded 

15 town were so bad that few travelers had ever visited it, 
and none had ever published an account of it. Addi- 
son could not suppress a good-natured smile at the 
simple manners and institutions of this singular com- 
munity. But he observed, with the exultation of a 

20 Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the 
territory of the republic swarmed with an honest, 
healthy, and contented peasantry, while the rich plain 
which surrounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual 
tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared 

25 wilds of America. 

At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only 
long enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of 
the Pantheon. His haste is the more extraordinary 
because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has 

30 given no hint which can enable us to pronounce why 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 147 

he chose to fly from a spectacle which every year 
allures from distant regions persons of far less taste 
and sensibility than his. Possibly, traveling as he did 
at the charge of a government distinguished by its 
enmity to the Church of Rome, he may have thought 5 
that it would be imprudent in him to assist at a the most 
magnificent rite of that Church. Many eyes would 
be upon him, and he might find it difficult to behave in 
such a manner as to give offense neither to his patrons 
in England nor to those among whom he resided. 10 
Whatever his motives may have been, he turned his 
back on the most august and affecting ceremony which 
is known among men, and posted along the Appian 
Way to Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, pre- 15 
haps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the 
awful mountain were indeed there. But a farmhouse 
stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of 
vines grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples 
of Psestum had not indeed been hidden from the eye 20 
of man by any great convulsion of nature ; but, strange 
to say, their existence was a secret even to artists and 
antiquaries. Though situated within a few hours' 
journey of a great capital, where Salvator a had not 
long before painted, and where Vico a was then lectur- 25 
ing, those noble remains were as little known to 
Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the forests 
of Yucatan. W T hat was to be seen at Naples Addison 
saw. He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnel of 
Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond 30 



148 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

trees of Caprese. But neither the wonders of 
nature nor those of art could so occupy his attention 
as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, the 
abuses of the government and the misery of the people. 
5 The great kingdom which had just descended to Philip 
the Fifth was in a state of paralytic dotage. Even 
Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, 
compared with the Italian dependencies of the Span- 
ish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called pros- 

10 perous. It is clear that all the observations which 
Addison made in Italy tended to confirm him in the 
political opinions which he had adopted at home. To 
the last, he always spoke of foreign travel as the best 
cure for Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the Tory fox- 

15 hunter asks what traveling is good for except to teach 
a man to jabber French and to talk against passive 
obedience. 

From Naples Addison returned to Rome by sea, 
along the coast which his favorite Virgil had cele- 

20 brated. The felucca passed the headland where the 
oar and trumpet were placed by the Trojan adven- 
turers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored at night 
under the shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe. 
The voyage ended in the Tiber, still overhung with 

25 dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow sand, as 
when it met the eyes of yEneas. From the ruined port 
of Ostia the stranger hurried to Rome ; and at Rome 
he remained during those hot and sickly months when, 
even in the Augustan age, all who could make their 

30 escape fled from mad dogs and from streets black 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 149 

with funerals, to gather the first figs of the season in 
the country. It is probable that when he, long after, 
poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Providence 
which had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted 
air, he was thinking of the August and September 5 
which he passed at Rome. 

It was not till the latter end of October that he tore 
himself away from the masterpieces of ancient and 
modern art which are collected in the city so long the 
mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, 10 
passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his 
prejudices in favor of classic architecture as he looked 
on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent 
some days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed 
with the pleasures of ambition and impatient of its 15 
pains, fearing both parties and loving neither, had 
determined to hide in an Italian retreat talents and 
accomplishments which, if they had been united with 
fixed principles and civil courage, might have made 
him the foremost man of his age. These days, we are 20 
told, passed pleasantly ; and we can easily believe it. 
For Addison was a delightful companion when he was 
at his ease ; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot 
that he was a Talbot, had the invaluable art of putting 
at ease all who came near him. 25 

Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially 
to the sculptures in the Museum, which he preferred 
even to those of the Vatican. He then pursued his 
journey through a country in which the ravages of 
the last war were still discernible, and in which all 30 



150 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

men were looking forward with dread to a still fiercer 
conflict. Eugene had already descended a from the 
Rhaetian Alps to dispute with Catinat the rich plain 
of Lombardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy was still 
5 reckoning among the allies of Louis. England had 
not yet actually declared war against France ; but 
Manchester had left Paris, and the negotiations which 
produced the Grand Alliance against the House of 
Bourbon were in progress. Under such circum- 

10 stances, it was desirable for an English traveler to 
reach neutral ground without delay. Addison re- 
solved to cross Mont Cenis. It was December, and the 
road was very different from that which now reminds 
the stranger of the power and genius of. Napoleon. 

15 The winter, however, was mild ; and the passage was, 
for those times, easy. To this journey Addison 
alluded when, in the ode which we have already 
quoted, he said that for him the Divine goodness had 
warmed the hoary Alpine hills. 

20 It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he com- 
posed his Epistle to his friend Montagu, now Lord 
Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now 
known only to curious readers, and will hardly be con- 
sidered by those to whom it is known as in any per- 

25 ceptible degree heightening Addison's fame. It is, 
however, decidedly superior to any English composi- 
tion which he had previously published. Nay, we 
think it quite as good as any poem in heroic meter 
which appeared during the interval between the death 

30 of Dryden a and the publication of the Essay on Criti- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



151 



cism. It contains passages as good as the second-rate 
passages of Pope, and would have added to the repu- 
tation of ParnelP or Prior. a 

But whatever be the literary merits or defects of the 
Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor to the principles 5 
and spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing to 
give. He had fallen from power, had been held up to 
obloquy, had been impeached by the House of Com- 
mons, and, though his peers had dismissed the im- 
peachment, had, as it seemed, little chance of ever 10 
again filling high office. The Epistle, written at such 
a time, is one among many proofs that there was no 
mixture of cowardice or meanness in the suavity and 
moderation which distinguished Addison from all the 
other public men of those stormy times. 15 

At Geneva the traveler learned that a partial change 
of ministry had taken place in England, and that the 
Earl of Manchester had become Secretary of State. 
Manchester exerted himself to serve his young friend. 
It was thought advisable that an English agent should 2 ° 
be near the person of Eugene in Italy ; and Addison, 
whose diplomatic education was now finished, was the 
man selected. He was preparing to enter on his 
honorable functions, when all his prospects were for a 
time darkened by the death of William the Third. a 25 

Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, po- 
litical, and religious, to the Whig party. That aver- 
sion appeared in the first measures of her reign. Man- 
chester was deprived of the seals, after he had held 
them onlv a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax 30 



152 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

was sworn of the Privy Councils Addison shared the 
fate of his three patrons. His hopes of employment 
in the public service were at an end ; his pension was 
stopped, and it was necessary for him to support him- 

5 self by his own exertions. He became tutor to a 
young English traveler, and appears to have rambled 
with his pupil over a great part of Switzerland and 
Germany. At this time he wrote his pleasing treatise 
on Medals. It was not published till after his death ; 

10 but several distinguished scholars saw the manuscript, 

and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to 

the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 

From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where 

he learned the melancholy news of his father's death. 

15 After passing some months in the United Provinces, 
he returned, about the close of the year 1703, to Eng- 
land. He was there cordially received by his friends, 
and introduced by them into the Kit-Cat Club, a so- 
ciety in which were collected all the various talents 

aoand accomplishments which then gave lustre to the 
Whig party. 

Addison was, during some months after his return 
from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary diffi- 
culties. But it was soon in the power of his noble 

25 patrons to serve him effectually. A political change, 
silent and gradual, but of the highest importance, was 
in daily progress. The accession of Anne had been 
hailed by the Tories with transports of joy and hope; 
and for a time it seemed that the Whigs had fallen 

30 never to rise again. The throne was surrounded by 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



153 



men supposed to be attached to the prerogative and to 
the Church ; and among these none stood so high in 
the favor of the sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Go- 
dolphin* and the Captain-General Marlborough. 11 

The country gentlemen and country clergymen had 5 
fully expected that the policy of these ministers would 
be directly opposed to that which had been almost 
constantly followed by William ; that the landed in- 
terest would be favored at the expense of trade ; that 
no addition would be made to the funded debt ; that 10 
the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late king 
would be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that the war 
with France, if there must be such a war, would, on 
our part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the gov- 
ernment would avoid close connections with foreign 15 
powers, and, above all, with Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country clergymen 
were fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The 
prejudices and passions which raged without control 
in vicarages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor- 20 
houses of fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the 
chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen saw that it 
was both for the public interest and for their own 
interest to adopt a Whig policy, at least as respected 
the alliances of the country and the conduct of the war. 25 
But if the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, 
it was impossible to abstain from adopting also their 
financial policy. The natural consequences followed. 
The rigid Tories were alienated from the government. 
The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The 30 



154 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS, 

votes of the Whigs could be secured only by further 
concessions ; and further concessions the Queen was 
induced to make. 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of par- 
5 ties bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. 
In 1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory ministry divided 
into two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Can- 
ning 1 and his friends in 1826 corresponded to that 
which Marlborough and Godolphin occupied in 1704. 

10 Nottingham and Jersey were in 1704 what Lord 
Eldon* and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. The 
Whigs of 1704 were in a situation resembling that in 
which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, 
Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. 

J 5 There was no avowed coalition between them and the 
moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct com- 
munication tending to such a coalition had yet taken 
place; yet all men saw that such a coalition was in- 
evitable — nay, that it was already half formed. Such, 

20 or nearly such, was the state of things when tidings 
arrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim on the 
13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was 
hailed with transports of joy and pride. No fault, no 
cause of quarrel, could be remembered by them against 

25 the commander whose genius had, in one day, changed 
the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, hum- 
bled the House of Bourbon, and secured the Act of 
Settlement* against foreign hostility. The feeling of 
the Tories was very different. They could not, indeed, 

30 without imprudence, openly express regret at an event 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 155 

so glorious to their country ; but their congratulations 
were so cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the 
victorious general and his friends. 

Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time 
he could spare from business he was in the habit of 5 
spending at Newmarket or at the card table. But he 
was not absolutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was 
too intelligent an observer not to perceive that litera- 
ture was a formidable engine of political warfare, and 
that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their 10 
party and raised their character by extending a liberal 
and judicious patronage to good writers. He was 
mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding 
badness of the poems which appeared in honor of the 
battle of Blenheim. One of those poems has been 15 
rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of 
three lines : 

" Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
And each man mounted on his capering beast; 
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 20 

Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did 
not know. He understood how to negotiate a loan or 
remit a subsidy ; he was also well versed in the history 
of running horses and fighting cocks ; but his ac- 
quaintance among the poets was very small. He con- 25 
suited Halifax; but Halifax affected to decline the 
office of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, when 
he had power, to encourage men whose abilities and 
acquirements might do honor to their country. Those 



156 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. Merit 
was suffered to pine in obscurity; and the public 
money was squandered on the undeserving. "I do 
know," he added, "a gentleman who would celebrate 
5 the battle in a manner worthy of the subject. But I 
will not name him." Godolphin, who was expert at 
the soft answer which turneth away wrath, and who 
was under the necessity of paying court to the Whigs, 
gently replied that there was too much ground for 

10 Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss should 
in time be rectified, and that in the meantime the 
services of a man such as Halifax had described 
should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned 
Addison ; but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the 

15 pecuniary interest of his friend, insisted that the min- 
ister should apply in the most courteous manner to 
Addison himself; and this Godolphin promised to do. 
Addison then occupied a garret up three pairs of 
stairs, over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this 

20 humble lodging he was surprised, on the morning 
which followed the conversation between Godolphin 
and Halifax, by a visit from no less a person than the 
Right Honorable Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton. This 

25 high-born minister had been sent by the Lord Treas- 
urer as ambassador to the needy poet. Addison 
readily undertook the proposed task — a task which, 
to so good a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When 
the poem was little more than half finished he showed 

30 it to Godolphin, who was delighted with it, and par- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



157 



ticularly with the famous similitude of the angel. 
Addison was instantly appointed to a commissioner- 
ship worth about two hundred pounds a year, and was 
assured that this appointment was only an earnest of 
greater favors. 5 

The Campaign came forth, and was as much ad- 
mired by the public as by the minister. It pleases us 
less on the whole than the Epistle to Halifax. Yet it 
undoubtedly ranks high among the poems which ap- 
peared during the interval between the death of 10 
Dryden and the dawn of Pope's genius. The chief 
merit of the Campaign, we think, is that which was 
noticed by Johnson, the manly and rational rejection 
of fiction. The first great poet whose works have 
come down to us sang of war long before war became 15 
a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity 
between two little Greek towns, each poured forth its 
crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed 
with implements of labor rudely turned into weapons. 
On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, 2 o 
whose wealth had enabled them to procure good 
armor, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had 
enabled them to practice military exercises. One such 
chief, if he were a man of great strength, agility, and 
courage, would probably be more formidable than 25 
twenty common men; and the force and dexterity 
with which he flung his spear might have no incon- 
siderable share in deciding the event of the day. Such 
were probably the battles with which Homer was 
familiar, Homer related the actions of men of a 3Q 



158 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

former generation — of men who sprang from the 
gods, and communed with the gods face to face ; of 
men one of whom could with ease hurl rocks which 
two sturdy hinds of a later period would be unable 
5 even to lift. He therefore naturally represented their 
martial exploit as resembling in kind, but far surpass- 
ing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and most ex- 
pert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in 
celestial armor, drawn by celestial coursers, grasping 

10 the spear which none but himself could raise, driving 
all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking Scaman- 
der a with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration 
of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to 
the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmet 

15 of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by 
horses of Thessalonian breed, struck down with his 
own right arm foe after foe. In all rude societies 
similar notions are found. There are at this day 
countries where the Life-guardsman Shaw would be 

20 considered as a much greater warrior than the Duke 
of Wellington. Bonaparte loved to describe the aston- 
ishment with which the Mamelukes looked at his 
diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above 
all his fellows by his bodily strength and by the skill 

25 with which he managed his horse and his saber, could 
not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, 
and rode like a butcher, could be the greatest soldier 
in Europe. 

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much 

30 truth as poetry requires. But truth was altogether 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



159 



wanting to the performances of those who, writing 
about battles which had scarcely anything in common 
with the battles of his times, servilely imitated his 
manner. The folly of Silius Italicus, a in particular, is 
positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse 5 
the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals 
of the first order ; and his narrative is made up of the 
hideous wounds which these generals inflicted with 
their own hands. Hasdrubal flings a spear, which 
grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero 10 
sends his spear into Hasdrubal's side. Fabius slays 
Thuris and Butes and Maris and Arses, and the long- 
haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapha- 
rus and Monsesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Han- 
nibal runs Perusinus through the groin with a stake, 15 
and breaks the backbone of Telesinus with a huge 
stone. This detestable fashion was copied in modern 
times, and continued to prevail down to the age of 
Addison. Several versifiers had described William 
turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, and 2 o 
dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable 
a writer as John Philips, the author of the Splendid 
Shilling, represented Marlborough as having won the 
battle of Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and • 
skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an 25 
example: 

"Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
Precipitate he rode, urging his way 30 



160 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
Attends his furious course. Around his head 
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
5 With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 

Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 
With headless ranks. What can they do? Or how 
Withstand his wide-destroying sword?" 

10 Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed 
from this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise 
for the qualities which made Marlborough truly great 
— energy, sagacity, military science. But above all, 
the poet extolled the firmness of that mind which, in 

15 the midst of confusion, uproar, and slaughter, ex- 
amined and disposed everything with the serene 
wisdom of a higher intelligence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous compari- 
son 8 of Marlborough to an angel guiding the whirl- 

20 wind. We will not dispute the general justice of 
Johnson's remarks on this passage. But we must 
point out one circumstance which appears to have 
escaped all the critics. The extraordinary effect which 
this simile produced when it first appeared, and which 

25 to the following generation seemed inexplicable, is 
doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line which most 
readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis — 

" Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia passed." 

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The 
30 great tempest of November, 1703, the only tempest 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. i6r 

which in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropi- 
cal hurricane, had left a dreadful recollection in the 
minds of all men. No other tempest was ever in this 
country the occasion of a parliamentary address or of 
a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Large 5 
mansions had been blown down. One prelate had 
been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London 
and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just 
sacked. Hundreds of families were still in mourning. 
The prostrate trunks of large trees and the ruins of 10 
houses still attested, in all the southern counties, the 
fury of the blast. The popularity which the simile of 
the angel enjoyed among Addison's contemporaries 
has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance 
of the advantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the 15 
particular has over the general. 

Soon after the Campaign, was published Addison's 
narrative of his travels in Italy. The first effect pro- 
duced by this narrative was disappointment. The 
crowd of readers who expected politics and scandal, 20 
speculations on the projects of Victor Amadeus, a and 
anecdotes about the jollities of convents and the 
amours of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by 
finding that the writer's mind was much more occu- 
pied by the war between the Trojans and Rutulians 25 
than by the war between France and Austria ; and 
that he seemed to have heard no scandal of later date 
than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina.* In 
time, however, the judgment of the many was over- 
ruled by that of the few ; and before the book was 30 



162 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five 
times the original price. It is still read with pleasure ; 
the style is pure and flowing ; the classical quotations 
and allusions are numerous and happy ; and we are 
5 now and then charmed by that singularly humane and 
delicate humor in which Addison excelled all men. 
Yet this agreeable work, even when considered merely 
as the history of a literary tour, may justly be cen- 
sured on account of its faults of omission. We have 

10 already said that, though rich in extracts from the 
Latin poets, it contains scarcely any references to the 
Latin orators and historians. We must add that it 
contains little, or rather no, information respecting 
the history and literature of modern Italy. To the 

15 best of our remembrance, Addison does not mention 
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo 
de' Medici, or Machiavelli. a He coldly tells us that 
at Ferrara he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at 
Venice he heard the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. 

20 But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less than for 
Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. The 
gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius to his 
mind. The sulphurous steam of Albula suggests to 
him several passages of Martial. But he has not a 

25 word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce ; a 

he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollecting 

the Specter Huntsman, a and wanders up and down 

Rimini without one thought of Francesca. a At Paris 

he had eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; but 

he seems not to have been at all aware that at Florence 
30 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 163 

he was in the vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau 
could not sustain a comparison — of the greatest lyric 
poet of modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. a This is the 
more remarkable because Filicaja was the favorite 
poet of the accomplished Somers, under whose pro- 5 
tection Addison traveled, and to whom the account of 
the travels is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison 
knew little, and cared less, about the literature of 
modern Italy. His favorite models were Latin. His 
favorite critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry 10 
that he had read seemed to him monstrous, and the 
other half tawdry. 

His Travels were followed by the lively opera of 
Rosamond. This piece was ill set to music, and there- 
fore failed on the stage; but it completely succeeded 15 
in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The 
smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elas- 
ticity with which they bound, are, to our ears at least, 
very pleasing. We are inclined to think that if Addi- 
son had left heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse 20 
to Rowe, a and had employed himself in writing airy 
and spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would 
have stood far higher than it now does. Some years 
after his death Rosamond was set to new music by 
Doctor Arne, a and was performed with complete sue- 25 
cess. Several passages long retained their popularity, 
and were daily sung, during the latter part of George 
the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in England. 

While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, 
and the prospects of his party, were constantly becom- 30 



164 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

ing brighter and brighter. In the spring of 1705 the 
ministers were freed from the restraint imposed by a 
House of Commons in which Tories of the most per J 
verse class had the ascendency. The elections were 
5 favorable to the Whigs. The coalition which had been 
tacitly and gradually formed was now openly avowed. 
The Great Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and 
Halifax were sworn of the Council. Halifax was 
sent in the following year to carry the decorations of 

10 the Order of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of 
Hanover, a and was accompanied on his honorable 
mission by Addison, who had just been made Under- 
Secretary of State. The Secretary of State under 
whom Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, 

15 a Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed to make 
room for the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl 
of Sunderland.* In every department of the State, 
indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give 
place to their opponents. At the close of 1707 the 

20 Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, with 
Harley a at their head. But the attempt, though 
favored by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at 
heart, and who had now quarreled with the Duchess 
of Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not 

25 yet. The Captain-General was at the height of popu- 
larity and glory. The Low Church party had a 
majority in Parliament. The country squires and 
rectors, though occasionally uttering a savage growl, 
were for the most part in a state of torpor, which 

30 lasted till they were roused into activity, and indeed 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 165 

into madness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell. a 
Harley and his adherents were compelled to retire. 
The victory of the Whigs was complete. At the gen- 
eral election of 1708, their strength in the House of 
Commons became irresistible; and before the end of 5 
that year, Somers was made Lord President of the 
Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

Addison sat for Malmesbury in the House of Com- 
mons which was elected in 1708. But the House of 
Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness 10 
of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in 
debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his 
diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody 
can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a 
speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange 15 
that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had 
no unfavorable effect on his success as a politician. 
In our time, a man of high rank and great fortune 
might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a 
considerable post. But it would now be inconceivable 20 
that a mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, 
must live by his pen, should in a few years become 
successively Under-Secretary of State, Chief Secre- 
tary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some 
oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth and 25 
with little property, rose to a post which dukes, the 
heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Ben- 
tinck, have thought it an honor to fill. Without open- 
ing his lips in debate, he rose to a post the highest that 
Chatham or Fox ever reached. And this he did before 30 



166 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

he had been nine years in Parliament. We must look 
for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the 
peculiar circumstances in which that generation was 
placed. During the interval which elapsed between 
5 the time when the censorship of the press ceased and 
the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be 
freely reported, literary talents were, to a public man, 
of much more importance, and oratorical talents of 
much less importance, than in our time. At present, 

10 the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a 
fact or an argument is to introduce that fact or argu- 
ment into a speech made in Parliament. If a political 
tract were to appear superior to the Conduct of the 
Allies* or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the 

I5 circulation of such a tract would be languid indeed 
when compared with the circulation of every remark- 
able word uttered in the deliberations of the legisla- 
ture. A speech made in the House of Commons at 
four in the morning is on thirty thousand tables before 

20 ten. A speech made on the Monday is read on the 
Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeen- 
shire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, 
has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It 
was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech 

25 could then produce no effect except on those who 
heard it. It was only by means of the press that the 
opinion of the public without doors could be influ- 
enced ; and the opinion of the public without doors 
could not but be of the highest importance in a coun- 
try governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time 






MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 167 

governed by triennial parliaments. The pen was, 
therefore, a more formidable political engine than the 
tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Par- 
liament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox 
of an earlier period, had not done half of what was 5 
necessary when they sat down amidst the acclamations 
of the Plouse of Commons. They had still to plead 
their cause before the country, and this they could 
only do by means of the press. Their works are now 
forgotten. But it is certain that there were in Grub 10 
Street 3 - few more assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, 
Letters, Answers, Remarks, than these two great 
chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when leader of the Oppo- 
sition and possessed of thirty thousand a year, edited 
the Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of literary 15 
habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and 
retouched and corrected many more. These facts suf- 
ficiently show of how great importance literary assist- 
ance then was to the contending parties. St. John 
was certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker ; 20 
Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker. But it 
may well be doubted whether St. John did so much 
for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did so 
much for the Whigs as Addison. When these things 
are duly considered, it will not be thought strange that 25 
Addison should have climbed higher in the State than 
any other Englishman has ever, by means merely of 
literary talents, been able to climb. Swift would, in all 
probability, have climbed as high if he had not been 
encumbered by his cassock and his pudding sleeves. 30 



168 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

As far as the homage of the great went, Swift had as 
much of it as if he had been Lord Treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived from his 
literary talents was added all the influence which 
5 arises from character. The world, always ready to 
think the worst of needy political adventurers, was 
forced to make one exception. Restlessness, violence, 
audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarily 
attributed to that class of men. But faction itself 

10 could not deny that Addison had, through all changes 
of fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions 
and to his early friends ; that his integrity was with- 
out stain ; that his whole deportment indicated a fine 
sense of the becoming ; that in the utmost heat of con- 

15 troversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, 
humanity, and social decorum ; that no outrage could 
ever provoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Chris- 
tian and a gentleman ; and that his only faults were a 
too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted 

20 to bashfulness. 

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men 
of his time ; and much of his popularity he owed, we 
believe, to that very timidity which his friends 
lamented. That timidity often prevented him from 

25 exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But it 
propitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy which 
would otherwise have been excited by fame so splen- 
did, and by so rapid an elevation. No man is so great 
a favorite with the public as he who is at once an 

30 object of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; and such 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 169 

were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those 
who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar con- 
versation declared with one voice that it was superior 
even to his writings. The brilliant Mary Montagu a 
said that she had known all the wits, and that Addison 5 
was the best company in the world. The malignant 
Pope was forced to own that there was a charm in 
Addison's talk which could be found nowhere else. 
Swift, when burning with animosity against the 
Whigs, could not but confess to Stella* that, after all, 10 
he had never known any associate so agreeable as 
Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conver- 
sation, said that the conversation of Addison was at 
once the most polite and the most mirthful that could 
be imagined; that it was Terence* and Catullus* in 15 
one, heightened by an exquisite something which was 
neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. 
Young, a an excellent judge of serious conversation, 
said that when Addison was at his ease he went on in 
a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain 20 
the attention of every hearer. Nor were Addison's 
great colloquial powers more admirable than the cour- 
tesy and softness of heart which appeared in his con- 
versation. At the same time, it would be too much to 
say that he was wholly devoid of the malice which is, 25 
perhaps, inseparable from a keen sense of the ludi- 
crous. He had one habit* which both Swift and Stella 
applauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. 
If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right 
were ill received, he changed his tone, "assented with 30 



lyo JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

civil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and 
deeper into absurdity. That such was his practice we 
should, we think, have guessed from his works. The 
Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and the 
5 Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is so 
zealous for the honor of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excel- 
lent specimens of this innocent mischief. 

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But 
his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to 

10 strangers. As soon as he entered a large company, 
as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were 
sealed, and his manners became constrained. None 
who met him only in great assemblies would have been 
able to believe that he was the same man who had 

15 often kept a few friends listening and laughing round 
a table from the time when the play ended till the clock 
of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet even 
at such a table he was not seen to the best advantage. 
To enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it 

20 was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, 
in his own phrase, think aloud. "There is no such 
thing," he used to say, "as real conversation, but be- 
tween two persons." 

This timidity — a timidity surely neither ungraceful 

25 nor unamiable — led Addison into the two most serious 
faults which can with justice be imputed to him. He 
found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine 
intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into 
convivial excess. Such excess was in that age re- 

y> garded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 171 

peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of 
ill-breeding that it was almost essential to the char- 
acter of a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is 
seen on a white ground ; and almost all the biog- 
raphers of Addison have said something about this 5 
failing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen 
Anne's reign, we should no more think of saying that 
he sometimes took too much wine than that he wore a 
long wig and a sword. 

To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature we 10 
must ascribe another fault which generally arises from 
a very different cause. He became a little too fond of 
seeing himself surrounded by a small circle of ad- 
mirers, to whom he was as a king, or rather as a god. 
All these men were far inferior to him in ability, and 15 
some of them had very serious faults. Nor did those 
faults escape his observation; for if ever there was 
an eye which saw through and through men, it was 
the eye of Addison. But with the keenest observation, 
and the finest sense of the ridiculous, he had a large 20 
charity. The feeling with which he looked on most 
of his humble companions was one of benevolence, 
slightly tinctured with contempt. He was at perfect 
ease in their company ; he was grateful for their 
devoted attachment ; and he loaded them with benefits. 25 
Their veneration for him appears to have exceeded 
that with which Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or 
Warburton by Hurd. a It was not in the power of 
adulation to turn such a head or deprave such a heart 
as Addison's. But it must in candor be admitted that 30 



172 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

he contracted some of the faults which can scarcely be 
avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as to be 
the oracle of a small literary coterie. 

One member of this little society was Eustace Bud- 

5 gell, a young Templar of some literature, and a distant 
relation of Addison. There was at this time no stain 
on the character of Budgell, and it is not improbable 
that his career would have been prosperous and hon- 
orable if the life of his cousin had been prolonged. 

10 But when the master was laid in the grave, the disciple 
broke loose from all restraint, descended rapidly from 
one degree of vice and misery to another, ruined his 
fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, 
and at length closed a wicked and unhappy life by 

15 self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, 
gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger as he was, retained 
his affection and veneration for Addison, and recorded 
those feelings in the last lines a which he traced 
before he hid himself from infamy under London 

20 Bridge. 

Another of Addison's favorite companions was Am- 
brose Philips, a good Whig and a middling poet, who 
had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of 
composition* which has been called, after his name, 

25 Namby-Pamby. But the most remarkable members 
of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, 
were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 

Steele had known Addison from childhood. They 
had been together at the Charterhouse and at Oxford ; 

30 but circumstances had then, for a time, separated them 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 173 

widely. Steele had left college without taking a de- 
gree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led 
a vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to 
find the philosopher's stone, and had written a relig- 
ious treatise and several comedies. He was one of 5 
those people whom it is impossible either to hate or to 
respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, 
his spirits lively, his passions strong, and his principles 
weak. His life was spent in sinning and repenting ; 
in inculcating what was right, and doing what was IO 
wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and 
honor ; in practice, he was much of the rake, and a 
little of the swindler. He was, however, so good- 
natured that it was not easy to be seriously angry with 
him, and that even rigid moralists felr more inclined 15 
to pity than to blame him, when he diced himself into 
a spunging-house, or drank himself into a fever. Ad- 
dison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled 
with scorn ; tried, with little success, to keep him out 
of scrapes ; introduced him to the great ; procured a 20 
good place for him ; corrected his plays ; and, though 
by no means rich, lent him large sums of money. One 
of these loans appears, from a letter dated in August, 
1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These 
pecuniary transactions probably led to frequent bick- 25 
erings. It is said that on one occasion Steele's negli- 
gence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay him- 
self by the help of a bailiff". We cannot join with Miss 
Aikin in rejecting this story- Johnson heard it from 
Savage, who heard it from Steele, Few private trans- 30 



174 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

actions which took place a hundred and twenty years 
ago are proved by stronger evidence than this. But 
we can by no means agree with those who condemn 
Addison's severity. The most amiable of mankind 
5 may well be moved to indignation when what he has 
earned hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to 
himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in dis- 
tress, is squandered with insane profusion. We will 
illustrate our meaning by an example which is not the 

10 less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. 
Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia, is represented as the 
most benevolent of human beings ; yet he takes in 
execution, not only the goods, but the person of his 
friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong 

i 5 measure because he has been informed that Booth, 
while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying 
just debts, has been buying fine jewelry and setting 
up a coach. No person who is well acquainted with 
Steele's life and correspondence can doubt that he 

20 behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused 
of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real history, we 
have little doubt, was something like this : A letter 
comes to Addison, imploring help in pathetic terms, 
and promising reformation and speedy repayment. 

25 Poor Dick declares that he has not an inch of candle, 
or a bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for a 
shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved. He deter- 
mines to deny himself some medals which are wanting 
to his series of the Twelve Caesars ; a to put off buying 

30 the new edition of Bayle's Dictionary; 3 and to wear 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 175 

his old sword and buckles another year. In this way 
he manages to send a hundred pounds to his friend. 
The next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of 
gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles are play- 
ing. The table is groaning under champagne, bur- 5 
gundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange 
that a man whose kindness is thus abused should send 
sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who 
had introduced himself to public notice by writing a 10 
most ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of 
the opera of Rosamond. He deserved, and at length 
attained, the first place in Addison's friendship. For 
a time Steele and Tickell were on good terms. But 
they loved Addison too much to love each other, and 15 
at length became as bitter enemies as the rival bulls a in 
Virgil. 

At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secre- 
tary. Addison was consequently under the necessity 20 
of quitting London for Dublin. Besides the chief sec- 
retaryship, which was then worth about two thousand 
pounds a year, he obtained a patent appointing him 
Keeper of the Irish Records for life, with a salary of 
three or four hundred a year. Budgell accompanied 25 
his cousin in the capacity of private secretary. 

Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but 
Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licen- 
tious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other 
libertines and jobbers' by a callous impudence which 30 



176 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

presented the strongest contrast to the Secretary's 
gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish ad- 
ministration at this time appear to have deserved seri- 
ous blame. But against Addison there was not a 
5 murmur. He long afterwards asserted, what all the 
evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove, that 
his diligence and integrity gained the friendship of all 
the most considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland 

i° has, we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his 
biographers. He was elected member for the borough 
of Cavan in the summer of 1709; and in the journals 
of two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of 
the entries appear to indicate that he so far overcame 

15 his timidity as to make speeches. Nor is this by any 
means improbable ; for the Irish House of Commons 
was a far less formidable audience than the English 
House ; and many tongues which were tied by fear in 
the greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. 

20 Gerard Hamilton,* for example, who, from fear of 
losing the fame gained by his single speech, sat mute 
at Westminster during forty years, spoke with great 
effect at Dublin when he was secretary to Lord Hali- 
fax, 
y- 25 While Addison was in Ireland an event occurred to 
which he owes his high and permanent rank among 
British writers. As yet his fame rested on perform- 
ances which, though highly respectable, were not built 
for duration, and which would, if he had produced 

30 nothing else, have now been almost forgotten — on 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



177 



some excellent Latin verses, on some English verses 
which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and on a 
book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicating 
any extraordinary powers of mind. These works 
showed him to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. 5 
The time had come when he was to prove himself a 
man of genius, and to enrich our literature with com- 
positions which will live as long as the English lan- 
guage. 

In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary pro- 10 
ject of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the 
consequences. Periodical papers had during many 
years been published in London. Most of these were 
political; but in some of them questions of morality, 
taste, and love-casuistry had been discussed. The lit- 15 
erary merit of these works was small indeed ; and even 
their names are now known only to the curious. 

Steele had been appointed Gazetteer 1 by Sunder- 
land, at the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus 
had access to foreign intelligence earlier and more 20 
authentic than was in those times within the reach of 
an ordinary news-writer. This circumstance seems to 
have suggested to him the scheme of publishing a 
periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on 
the days on which the post left London for the coun- 25 
try, which were, in that generation, the Tuesdays,* 
Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was to contain the 
foreign news, accounts of theatrical representations, 
and the literary gossip of Will's 3 and of the Grecian.* 
It was also to contain remarks on the fashionable 30 



178 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

topics of the day, compliments to beauties, pasquinades 
on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preach- 
ers. The aim of Steele does not appear to have been 
at first higher than this. He was not ill qualified to 
5 conduct the work which he had planned. His public 
intelligence he drew from the best sources. He knew 
the town, and had paid dear for his knowledge. He 
had read much more than the dissipated men of that 
time were in the habit of reading. He was a rake 

10 among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His 
style was easy and not incorrect ; and though his wit 
and humor were of no high order, his gay animal 
spirits imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity 
which ordinary readers could hardly distinguish from 

15 comic genius. His writings have been well compared 
to those light wines which, though deficient in body 
and flavor, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept 
too long or carried too far. 

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an 

20 imaginary person, almost as well known in that age as 
Mr. Paul Pry a or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift 
had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical 
pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. 
Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious 

25 reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet 
still more diverting than the first. All the wits had 
combined to keep up the joke, and the town was long 
in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined to em- 
ploy the name which this controversy had made popu- 

30 lar; and in April, 1709, it was announced that Isaac 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 179 

Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish 
a paper called the Tatler. 

Addison had not been consulted about this scheme ; 
but as soon as he heard of it he determined to give his 
assistance. The effect of that assistance cannot be 5 
better described than in Steele's own words. "I 
fared," he said, "like a distressed prince who calls in a 
powerful neighbor to his aid. I was undone by my 
auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not 
subsist without dependence on him." "The paper," 10 
he says elsewhere, "was advanced indeed. It was 
raised to a greater thing than I intended it." 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. 
George's Channel his first contributions to the Tatler, 
had no notion of the extent and variety of his own 15 
powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich 
with a hundred ores. But he had been acquainted 
only with the least precious part of his treasures, and 
had hitherto contented himself with producing some- 
times copper and sometimes lead, intermingled with a 20 
little silver. All at once, and by mere accident, he had 
lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the finest gold. 

The mere choice and arrangement of his words 
would have sufficed to make his essays classical. For 
never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had 25 
the English language been written with such sweet- 
ness, grace, and facility. But this was the smallest 
part of Addison's praise. Had he clothed his thoughts 
in the half French style of Horace Waipole, or in the 
half Latin style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German 30 



l8o JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

jargon a of the present day, his genius would have 
triumphed over all faults of manner. As a moral 
satirist he stands unrivaled. If ever the best Tatlers 
and Spectators were equaled in their own kind, we 
5 should be inclined to guess that it must have been by 
the lost comedies of Menander. a 

In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior 
to Cowley a or Butler. a No single ode of Cowley con- 
tains so many happy analogies as are crowded into the 

10 lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller; a and we would under- 
take to collect from the Spectators as great a number 
of ingenious illustrations as can be found in Hudibras. 
The still higher faculty of invention Addison pos- 
sessed in still larger measure. The numerous fictions, 

15 generally original, often wild and grotesque, but 
always singularly graceful and happy, which are 
found in his essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a 
great poet — a rank to which his metrical compositions 
give him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, 

20 of all the shades of human character, he stands in the 
first class. And what he observed he had the art of 
communicating in two widely different ways. He 
could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, as well as 
Clarendon. But he could do something better. He 

25 could call human beings into existence, and make 
them exhibit themselves. If we wish to find anything 
more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go 
either to Shakespeare or to Cervantes. a 

But what shall we say of Addison's humor — of his 

30 sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. igi 

sense in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents 
which occur every day, and from little peculiarities of 
temper and manner, such as may be found in every 
man ? We feel the charm ; we give ourselves up to it ; 
but we strive in vain to analyze it. 5 

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's pecu- 
liar pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of 
some other great satirists. The three most eminent 
masters of the art of ridicule during the eighteenth 
century were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Vol- IO 
taire. Which of the three had the greatest power of 
moving laughter may be questioned. But each of 
them, within his own domain, was supreme. 

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment 
is without disguise or restraint. He gambols ; he 15 
grins ; he shakes the sides ; he points the finger ; he 
turns up the nose ; he shoots out the tongue. The 
manner of Swift is the very opposite to this. He 
moves laughter, but never joins in it. He appears in 
his works such as he appeared in society. All the 20 
company are convulsed with merriment, while the 
Dean, the author of all the mirth, preserves an in- 
vincible gravity, and even sourness of aspect, and 
gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous 
fancies, with the air of a man reading the commina- 25 
tion service. 

The manner of Addison is as remote from that of 
Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out 
like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a 
double portion of severity into his countenance while 30 



1 82 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

laughing inwardly ; but preserves a look peculiarly 
his own — a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by 
an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible 
elevation of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of 
5 the lip. His tone is never that either of a Jack Pud- 
ding or of a cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom 
the quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly tem- 
pered by good nature and good breeding. 

We own that the humor of Addison is, in our opin- 
io ion, of a more delicious flavor than the humor of either 
Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, 
that both Swift and Voltaire have been successfully 
mimicked, and that no man has yet been able to mimic 
Addison. The letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe 
15 is Voltaire all over, and imposed, during a long time, 
on the Academicians of Paris. There are passages in 
Arbuthnot's* satirical works which we, at least, can- 
not distinguish from Swift's best writing. But of the 
many eminent men who have made Addison their 
20 model, though several have copied his mere diction 
with happy effect, none have been able to catch the 
tone of his pleasantry. In the World, in the Connois- 
seur, in the Mirror, in the Lounger? there are numer- 
ous papers written in obvious imitation of his Tatlers 
25 and Spectators. Most of these papers have some 
merit ; many are very lively and amusing ; but there 
is not a single one which could be passed off as Addi- 
son's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. 

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from 
30 Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the other great 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 183 

masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the 
moral purity which we find even in his merriment. 
Severity, gradually hardening and darkening into mis- 
anthropy, characterizes the works of Swift. The 
nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman ; but he 5 
venerated nothing. Neither in the masterpieces of 
art nor in the purest examples of virtue, neither in 
the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigma of the 
grave, could he see anything but subjects for drollery. 
The more solemn and august the theme, the more IO 
monkey-like was his grimacing and chattering. The 
mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephistophiles ; the 
mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame 
Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the happiness of 
seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from 15 
an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth 
must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison 
— a mirth consistent with tender compassion for all 
that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that 
is sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral 20 
duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has 
ever been associated by Addison with any degrading 
idea. 'His humanity is without a parallel in literary 
history. The highest proof of virtue is to possess 
boundless power without abusing it. No kind of 25 
power is more formidable than the power of making 
men ridiculous ; and that power Addison possessed 
in boundless measure. How grossly that power was 
abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well known. But 
of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has 30 



1 84 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

blackened no man's character; nay, that it would be 
difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the volumes 
which he has left us a single taunt which can be 
called ungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors 
5 whose malignity might have seemed to justify as ter- 
rible a revenge as that which men not superior to him 
in genius wreaked on Bettesvvorth a and on Franc de 
Pompignan. a He was a politician ; he was the best 
writer of his party ; he lived in times of fierce excite- 

ioment, in times when persons of high character and 
station stooped to scurrility such as is now practised 
only by the basest of mankind. Yet no provocation 
and no example could induce him to return railing for 
railing. 

15 Of the service which his essays rendered to morality 
it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when 
the Tatler appeared, that age of outrageous profane- 
ness and licentiousness which followed the Restora- 

' tion had passed away. Jeremy Collier 1 had shamed 

20 the theaters into something which, compared with the 
excesses of Etherege a and Wycherley, a might be called 
decency. Yet there still lingered in the public mind a 
pernicious notion that there was some connection be- 
tween genius and profligacy, between the domestic 

25 virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans. That 
error it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. He 
taught the nation that the faith and the morality of 
Hale a and Tillotson a might be found in company with 
wit more sparkling than the wit of Congreve, a and 

30 with humor richer than the humor of Vanbrugh.* So 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 185 

effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery 
which had recently been directed against virtue, that, 
since his time, the open violation of decency has 
always been considered among us as the mark of a 
fool. And this revolution, the greatest and most 5 
salutary ever effected by any satirist, he accomplished, 
be it remembered, without writing one personal lam- 
poon. 

In the early contributions of Addison to the Tatler, 
his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet 10 
from the first his superiority to all his coadjutors was 
evident. Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to 
anything that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we 
most admire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political 
Upholsterer. The proceedings of the Court of Honor, 15 
the Thermometer of Zeal, the story of the Frozen 
Words, the Memoirs of the Shilling, are excellent 
specimens of that ingenious and lively species of fic- 
tion in which Addison excelled all men. There is one 
still better paper of the same class. But though that 20 
paper, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, was 
probably thought as edifying as one of Smalridge's 
sermons, a we dare not indicate it to the squeamish 
readers of the nineteenth century. 

During the session of Parliament which commenced 25 
in November, 1709, and which the impeachment of 
Sacheverell has made memorable, Addison appears to 
have resided in London. The Tatler was now more 
popular than any periodical paper had ever been ; and 
his connection with it was generally known. It was 30 



186 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

not known, however, that almost everything good in 
the Tatler was his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty 
numbers which we owe to him were not merely the 
best, but so decidedly the best that any five of them 

5 are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers 
in which he had no share. 

He required, at this time, all the solace which he 
could derive from literary success. The Queen had 
always disliked the Whigs. She had during some 

10 years disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning 
by a disputed title, she could not venture directly to 
oppose herself to a majority of both Houses of Par- 
liament ; and, engaged as she was in a war on the 
event of which her own crown was staked, she could 

I5 not venture to disgrace a great and successful general. 
But at length, in the year 1710, the cause which had 
restrained her from showing her aversion to the Low 
Church party ceased to operate. The trial of Sach- 
everell produced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely 

20 less violent than the outbreaks which we can our- 
selves remember in 1820 and in 183 1. The country 
gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble of the 
towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It was 
clear that, if a general election took place before the 

25 excitement abated, the Tories would have a majority. 
The services of Marlborough had been so splendid 
that they were no longer necessary. The Queen's 
throne was secure from all attack on the part of Louis. 
Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the English 

30 and German armies would divide the spoils of Ver- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 187 

3ailles a and Marli a than that a Marshal of France 
would bring back the Pretender a to St. James's. a The 
Queen, acting by the advice of Harley, determined to 
dismiss her servants. In June the change commenced. 
Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories exulted 5 
over his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, 
to persuade themselves that her Majesty had acted 
only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that 
she meditated no further alteration. But early in 
August Godolphin was surprised by a letter from IO 
Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. 
Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation 
of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs during an- 
other month ; and then the ruin became rapid and 
violent. The Parliament was dissolved. The minis- 15 
ters were turned out. The Tories were called to office. ' 
The tide of popularity ran violently in favor of the 
High Church party. That party, feeble in the late 
House of Commons, was now irresistible. The power 
which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired they 20 
used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which 
the whole pack set up for prey and for blood appalled 
even him who had roused and unchained them. 
When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the 
conduct of the discarded ministers, we cannot but feel 25 
a movement of indignation at the injustice with which 
they were treated. No body of men had ever admin- 
istered the government with more energy, ability, and 
moderation ; and their success had been proportioned 
to their wisdom. They had saved Holland and Ger- 30 



1 88 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

many. They had humbled France. They had, as it 
seemed, all but torn Spain from the House of Bour- 
bon. They had made England the first power in 
Europe. At home they had united England and Scot- 
5 land. They had respected the rights of conscience 
and the liberty of the subject. They retired, leaving 
their country at the height of prosperity and glory. 
And yet they were pursued to their retreat by such a 
roar of obloquy as was never raised against the gov- 

10 ernment which threw away thirteen colonies, or 
against the government which sent a gallant army to 
perish in the ditches of Walcheren. a 

None of the Whigs suffered more in the general 
wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some 

15 heavy pecuniary losses, of the nature of which we are 
imperfectly informed, when his secretaryship was 
taken from him. He had reason to believe that he 
should also be deprived of the small Irish office which 
he held by patent. He had just resigned his fellow- 

20 ship. It seems probable that he had already ventured 
to raise his eyes to a great lady, a and that, while his 
political friends were in power, and while his own 
fortunes were rising, he had been, in the phrase of the 
romances which were then fashionable, permitted to 

25 hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer and Mr. 
Addison the Chief Secretary were, in her ladyship's 
opinion, two very different persons. All these calam- 
ities united, however, could not disturb the serene 
cheerfulness of a mind conscious of innocence, and 

30 rich in its own wealth. He told his friends, with smil- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 189 

ing resignation, that they ought to admire his philos- 
ophy ; that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, 
his fellowship, and his mistress, that he must think of 
turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as 
good as ever. 5 

He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which 
his friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was 
the esteem with which he was regarded that, while the 
most violent measures were taken for the purpose of 
forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he was 10 
returned to Parliament without even a contest. Swift, 
who was now in London, and who had already deter- 
mined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these 
remarkable words : "The Tories carry it among the 
new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has 15 
passed easy and undisputed ; and I believe if he had 
a mind to be king, he would hardly be refused." 

The good will with which the Tories regarded Ad- 
dison is the more honorable to him because it had not 
been purchased by any concession on his part. During 20 
the general election he published a political journal, 
entitled the Whig Examiner. Of that journal it may 
be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strong 
political prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in 
wit to any of Swift's writings on the other side. 25 
When it ceased to appear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, 
expressed his exultation at the death of so formidable 
an antagonist. "He might well rejoice," says John- 
son, "at the death of that which he could not have 
killed." "On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius 30 



190 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did 
the superiority of his powers more evidently appear." 
The only use which Addison appears to have made 
of the favor with which he was regarded by the Tories 
5 was to save some of his friends from the general ruin 
of the Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation 
which made it his duty to take a decided part in poli- 
tics. But the case of Steele and of Ambrose Philips 
was different. For Philips, Addison even conde- 

10 scended to solicit ; with what success we have not 
ascertained. Steele held two places. He was Gazet- 
teer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. The 
Gazette was taken from him. But he was suffered to 
retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an' implied 

15 understanding that he should not be active against the 
new government ; and he was, during more than two 
years, induced by Addison to observe this armistice 
with tolerable fidelity. 

Isaac Bickerstaff a accordingly became silent upon 

so politics, and the article of news, which had once 
formed about one-third of his paper, altogether dis- 
appeared. The Tatler had completely changed its 
character. It was now nothing but a series of essays 
on books, morals, and manners. Steele therefore re- 

25 solved to bring it to a close, and to commence a new 
work on an improved plan. It was announced that 
this new work would be published daily. The under- 
taking was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash ; 
but the event amply justified the confidence with which 

30 Steele relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. -On 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



I 9 I 



the 2d of January, 171 1, appeared the last Tatlcr. At 
the beginning- of March following- appeared the first 
of an incomparable series of papers, containing ob- 
servations on life and literature by an imaginary 
spectator. 5 

The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by 
Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait 
was meant to be in some features a likeness of the 
painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after 
passing a studious youth at the university, has traveled 10 
on classic ground, and has bestowed much attention 
on curious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, 
fixed his residence in London, and has observed all the 
forms of life which are to be found in that great city ; 
has daily listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked 15 
with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled 
with the parsons at Child's, and with the politicians 
at the St. James's. In the morning, he often listens 
to the hum of the Exchange ; in the evening, his face 
is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane The- 20 
ater. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents 
him from opening his mouth except in a small circle 
of intimate friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four 
of the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, 25 
and the merchant, were uninteresting figures, fit only 
for a background. But the other two, an old country 
baronet and an old town rake, though not delineated 
with a very delicate pencil, had some good strokes. 
Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, 30 



1 92 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

retouched them, colored them, and is in truth the 
creator of the Sir Roger de Coverley and the Will 
Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. 

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be 
5 both original and eminently happy. Every valuable 
essay in the series may be read with pleasure sepa- 
rately ; yet the five or six hundred essays form a 
whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. 
It must be remembered, too, that at that time no novel, 

10 giving a lively and powerful picture of the common 
life and manners of England, had appeared. Richard- 
son 1 was working as a compositor. Fielding a was 
robbing birds' nests. Smollett a was not yet born. 
The narrative, therefore, which connects together the 

15 Spectator's essays gave to our ancestors their first 
taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. That 
narrative was, indeed, constructed with no art or 
labor. The events were such events as occur every 
day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as 

20 the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, 'goes 
with the Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, 
walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is fright- 
ened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension 
so far as to go to the theater when the "Distressed 

25 Mother" a is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the 
summer to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old 
house, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack 
caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears 
a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a 

30 letter from the honest butler brings to the club the 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 193 

news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honeycomb mar- 
ries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up, and 
the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can 
hardly be said to form a plot ; yet they are related 
with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, 5 
such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such 
knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm 
us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least 
doubt that if Addison had written a novel on an 
extensive plan, it would have been superior to IO 
any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be 
considered not only as the greatest of the English 
essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English 
novelists. 

We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the 15 
Spectator. About three-sevenths of the work are his ; 
and it is no exaggeration to say that his worst essay is 
as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. 
His best essays approach near to absolute perfection ; 
nor is their excellence more wonderful than their 20 
variety. His invention never seems to flag ; nor is he 
ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of 
wearing out a subject. There are no dregs in his 
wine. He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal 
nabob who held that there was only one good glass 25 
in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first spark- 
ling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh 
draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday, we 
have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's a 
Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday, an Eastern apo- 30 



i 9 4 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

logue as richly colored as the tales of Scheherezade ; a 
on the Wednesday, a character described with the 
skill of La Bruyere ; a on the Thursday, a scene from 
common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar 
5 of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatian 
pleasantry on fashionable follies — on hoops, patches, 
or puppet-shows ; and on the Saturday, a religious 
meditation, which will bear a comparison with the 
finest passages in Massillon. 3 

10 It is dangerous to select where there is so much that 
deserves the highest praise. We will venture, how- 
ever, to say that any person who wishes to form a 
just notion of the extent and variety of Addison's 
powers will do well to read at one sitting the following 

15 papers: the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the 

Exchange, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the 

Vision of Mirza, the Transmigrations of Pug the 

Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger de Coverley. 

The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the 

20 Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his critical 
papers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, 
and often ingenious. The very worst of them must 
be regarded as creditable to him, when the character 
of the school in which he had been trained is fairly 

25 considered. The best of them were much too good for 
his readers. In truth, he was not so far behind our 
generation as he was before his own. No essays in the 
Spectator were more censured and derided than those 
in which he raised his voice against the contempt with 

30 which our fine old ballads were regarded, and showed 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 195 

the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished and 
polished, gives lustre to the JEncid and the Odes of 
Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of Chevy 
Chase. 3 - 

It is not strange that the success of the Spectator 5 
should have been such as no similar work has ever 
obtained. The number of copies daily distributed was 
at first three thousand. It subsequently increased, 
and had risen to near four thousand when the stamp 
tax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of 10 
journals. The Spectator, however, stood its ground, 
doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, 
still yielded a large revenue both to the State and to 
the authors. For particular papers the demand was 
immense; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies 15 
were required. But this was not all. To have the 
Spectator served up every morning with the bohea 
and rolls was a luxury for the few. The majority 
were content to wait till essays enough had appeared 
to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each vol- 20 
ume were immediately taken off, and new editions 
were called for. It must be remembered that the pop- 
ulation of England was then hardly a third of what it 
now is. The number of Englishmen who were in the 
habit of reading was probably not a sixth of what it 25 
now is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who found any 
pleasure in literature was a rarity. Nay, there was 
doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose 
country seat did not contain ten books, receipt books 
and books on farriery included. In these circum- 30 



196 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

stances the sale of the Spectator must be considered 
as indicating a popularity quite as great as that of the 
most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. 
Dickens in our own time. 
5 At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to appear. 
It was probably felt that the short-faced gentleman 
and his club had been long enough before the town ; 
and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace 
them by a new set of characters. In a few weeks the 

10 first number of the Guardian was published. But the 
Guardian was unfortunate both in its birth and in its 
death. It began in dullness, and disappeared in a tem- 
pest of faction. The original plan was bad. Addison 
contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had ap- 

15 peared ; and it was then impossible to make the Guar- 
dian what the Spectator had been. Nestor Ironside 
and the Miss Lizards were people to whom even he 
could impart no interest. He could only furnish some 
excellent little essays, both serious and comic; and 

20 this he did. 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian 
during the first two months of its existence, is a ques- 
tion which has puzzled the editors and biographers, 
but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solu- 

25 tion. He was then engaged in bringing his Cato on 
the stage. 

The first four acts of this drama had been lying in 
his desk since his return from Italy. His modest and 
sensitive nature shrank from the risk of a public and 

30 shameful failure ; and though all who saw the manu- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



197 



script were loud in praise, some thought it possible 
that an audience might become impatient even of very 
good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play 
without hazarding a representation. At length, after 
many fits of apprehension, the poet yielded to the 5 
urgency of his political friends, who hoped that the 
public would discover some analogy between the fol- 
lowers of Caesar and the Tories, between Sempronius 
and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, struggling to 
the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band of 10 
patriots who still stood firm around Halifax and 
Wharton. 

Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury 
Lane Theater, without stipulating for any advantage 
to himself. They therefore thought themselves bound 15 
to spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decora- 
tions, it is true, would not have pleased the skillful 
eye of Mr. Macready. a Juba's waistcoat blazed with 
gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a duchess 
on the birthday ; and Cato wore a w ig worth fifty 20 
guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is 
undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. The 
part of the hero was excellently played by Booth. a 
Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in 
a blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition. The 25 
pit was crowded with attentive and friendly listeners 
from the Inns of Court and the literary coffee-houses. 
Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Governor of the Bank of Eng- 
land, was at the head of a powerful body of auxiliaries 
from the City, warm men a and true Whigs, but better 30 



198 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

known at Jonathan's and Garraway's than in the 
haunts of wits and critics. 

These precautions were quite superfluous. The 
Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind 

5 feelings. Nor was it for their interest, professing, as 
they did, profound reverence for law and prescription, 
and abhorrence both of popular insurrections and of 
standing armies, to appropriate to themselves reflec- 
tions thrown on the great military chief and dema- 

iogogue, who, with the support of the legions and of 
the common people, subverted all the ancient institu- 
tions of his country. Accordingly, every shout that 
was raised by the members of the Kit-Cat was echoed 
by the High Churchmen of the October ; a and the 

15 curtain at length fell amidst thunders of unanimous 
applause. 

The delight and admiration of the town were de- 
scribed by the Guardian in terms which we might 
attribute to partiality, were it not that the Examiner, 

20 the organ of the ministry, held similar language. The 
Tories, indeed, found much to sneer at in the conduct 
of their opponents. Steele had on this, as on other 
occasions, shown more zeal than taste or judgment. 
The honest citizens who marched under the orders of 

25 Sir Gibby, a as he was facetiously called, probably 
knew better when to buy and when to sell stock than 
when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred 
some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius 
their favorite, and by giving to his insincere rants 

30 louder plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 199 

eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the in- 
credible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying 
from prosperous vice and from the power of impious 
men to a private station, did not escape the sarcasms 
of those who justly thought that he could fly from 5 
nothing more vicious or impious than himself. The 
epilogue, which was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, 
was severely and not unreasonably censured as igno- 
ble and out of place. But Addison was described, 
even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman of 10 
wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of 
both parties were happy, and whose name ought not 
to be mixed up with factious squabbles. 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig 
party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was 15 
Bolingbroke's. Between two acts he sent for Booth 
to his box, and presented him, before the whole the- 
ater, with a purse of fifty guineas for defending the 
cause of liberty so well against a perpetual Dictator. 
This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which 20 
Marlborough had made, not long before his fall, to 
obtain a patent creating him Captain-General for life. 

It was April ; and in April a hundred and thirty 
years ago the London season was thought to be far 
advanced. During a whole month, however, Cato 25 
was performed to overflowing houses, and brought 
into the treasury of the theater twice the gains of an 
ordinary spring. In the summer the Drury Lane 
Company went down to act at Oxford, and there, be- 
fore an audience which retained an affectionate 30 



200 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

remembrance of Addison's accomplishments and vir- 
tues, his tragedy was acted during several days. The 
gownsmen began to besiege the theater in the fore- 
noon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were 
5 filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had so extra- 
ordinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has made 
up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of 
the Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the 

K) time of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of 
Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it 
contains excellent dialogue and declamation, and, 
among plays fashioned on the French model, must be 
allowed to rank high; not indeed with At Italic* or 

15 Saul;* but, we think, not below China * and certainly 
above any other English tragedy of the same school ; 
above many of the plays of Corneille ; a above many 
of the plays of Voltaire and Alfieri ; and above some 
plays of Racine. Be this as it may, we have little 

20 doubt that Cato did as much as the Tatlers, Spectators 
and Freeholders united, to raise Addison's fame 
among his contemporaries. 

The modesty and good nature of the successful 
dramatist had tamed even the malignity of faction. 

25 But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion 
than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the 
fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. John 
Dennis published Remarks on Cato, which were writ- 
ten with some acuteness and with much coarseness and 

30 asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor re- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 201 

taliated. On many points he had an excellent defense, 
and nothing would have been easier than to retaliate ; 
for Dennis had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad 
comedies ; he had, moreover, a larger share than most 
men of those infirmities and eccentricities which excite 5 
laughter ; and Addison's power of turning either an 
absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was un- 
rivaled. Addison, however, serenely conscious of his 
superiority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose 
temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, had been 10 
soured by want, by controversy, and by literary fail- 
ures. 

But among the young candidates for Addison's 
favor there was one distinguished by talents from the 
rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity 15 
and insincerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his 
powers had expanded to their full maturity ; and his 
best poem, the Rape of the Lock, had recently been 
published. Of his genius Addison had always ex- 
pressed high admiration. But Addison had early dis- 2 o 
cerned, what might, indeed, have been discerned by 
an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, 
crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on 
society for the unkindness of nature. In the Specta- 
tor the Essay on Criticism had been praised with cor- 25 
dial warmth ; but a gentle hint had been added that 
the writer of so excellent a poem would have done 
well to avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, though 
evidently more galled by the censure than gratified by 
the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and 30 



202 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

promised to profit by it. The two writers continued 
to exchange civilities, counsel, and small good offices. 
Addison publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces, 
and Pope furnished Addison with a prologue. This 

5 did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had 
injured without provocation. The appearance of the 
Remarks on Cato gave the irritable poet an opportu- 
nity of venting his malice under the show of friend- 
ship ; and such an opportunity could not but be wel- 

10 come to a nature which was implacable in enmity, and 
which always preferred the tortuous to the straight 
path. He published, accordingly, the Narrative of 
the Frenzy of John Dennis. But Pope had mistaken 
his powers. He was a great master of invective and 

15 sarcasm; he could dissect a character in terse and 
sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis ; but of 
dramatic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had 
written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus 
or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been 

20 crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled — to 
borrow Horace's imagery and his own — a wolf which, 
instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey 
which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly 
contemptible. Of argument there is not even the 

25 show ; and the jests are such as, if they were intro- 
duced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the 
shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the drama, and 
the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. "There 
is," he cries, "no peripetia a in the tragedy, no change 

30 of fortune, no change at all." — "Pray, good sir, be 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



203 



not angry," says the old woman, "I'll fetch change." 
This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. 

There can be no doubt that Addison saw through 
this officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved 
by it. So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him 5 
no good, and, if he were thought to have any hand in 
it, must do him harm. Gifted with incomparable 
powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self-defense, 
used those powers inhumanly or uncourteously ; and 
he was not disposed to let others make his fame and 10 
his interests a pretext under which they might commit 
outrages from which he had himself constantly ab- 
stained. He accordingly declared that he had no con- 
cern in the Narrative, that he disapproved of it, and 
that if he answered the Remarks, he would answer 15 
them like a. gentleman ; and he took care to com- 
municate this to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified ; 
and to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe the 
hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. 

In September, 1713, the Guardian ceased to appear. 20 
Steele had gone mad about politics. A general elec- 
tion had just taken place ; he had been chosen member 
for Stockbridge, and he fully expected to play a first 
part in Parliament. The immense success of the 
Tatler and Spectator had turned his head. He had 25 
been the editor of both those papers, and was not 
aware how entirely they owed their influence and pop- 
ularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always 
violent, were now excited by vanity, ambition, and 
faction to such a pitch that he every day committed 30 



204 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

some offense against good sense and good taste. All 
the discreet and moderate members of his own party 
regretted and condemned his folly. "I am in a thou- 
sand troubles," Addison wrote, "about poor Dick, and 
5 wish that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous 
to himself. But he has sent me word that he is de- 
termined to go on, and that any advice I may give 
him in this particular will have no weight with him." 
Steele set up a political paper called the English- 

10 man, which, as it was not supported by contributions 
from Addison, completely failed. By this work, by 
some other writings of the same kind, and by the airs 
which he gave himself at the first meeting of the new 
Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that they 

15 determined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him 
gallantly, but were unable to save him. The vote of 
expulsion was regarded by all dispassionate men as a 
tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. But 
Steele's violence and folly, though they by no means 

20 justified the steps which his enemies took, had com- 
pletely disgusted his friends ; nor did he ever regain/ 
the place which he had held in the public estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the design of 
adding an eighth volume to the Spectator. In June, 

25 1 714, the first number of the new series appeared, and 
during about six months three papers were published 
weekly. Nothing can be more striking than the con- 
trast between the Englishman and the eighth volume 
of the Spectator — between Steele without Addison 

30 and Addison without Steele. The Englishman is for- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 205 

gotten ; the eighth volume of the Spectator contains 
perhaps the finest essays, both serious and playful, in 
the English language. 

Before this volume was completed, the death of 
Anne produced an entire change in the administration 5 
of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the 
Tory party distracted by internal feuds, and unpre- 
pared for any great effort. Harley had just been dis- 
graced. Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the 
chief minister. But the Queen was on her death-bed IO 
before the white staff had been given, and her last 
public act was to deliver it with a feeble hand to the 
Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a 
coalition between all sections of public men who were 
attached to the Protestant succession. George the 15 
First was proclaimed without opposition. A council, 
in which the leading Whigs had seats, took the direc- 
tion of affairs till the new King should arrive. The 
first act of the Lords Justices was to appoint Addison 
their Secretary. 20 

^There is an idle tradition that he was directed to 
prepare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy 
himself as to the style of this composition, and that 
the Lords Justices called in a clerk, who at once did 
what was wanted. It is not strange that a story so 25 
flattering to mediocrity should be popular; and we 
are sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But 
the truth must be told. It was well observed by Sir 
James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of these times 
was unequaled, that Addison never, in any official 30 



206 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

document, affected wit or eloquence, and that his 
despatches are, without exception, remarkable for 
unpretending simplicity. Everybody who knows with 
what ease Addison's finest essays were produced must 
5 be convinced that, if well-turned phrases had been 
wanted, he would have had no difficulty in finding 
them. We are, however, inclined to believe that the 
story is not absolutely without a foundation. It may 
well be that Addison did not know, till he had con- 

10 suited experienced clerks who remembered the times 
when William the Third was absent on the Continent, 
in what form a letter from the Council of Regency to 
the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely 
that the ablest statesmen of our time — Lord John Rus- 

15 sell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, for example — 

would, in similar circumstances, be found quite as 

ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries which 

the dullest man may learn with a little attention, and 

ig which the greatest man cannot possibly know by intu- 

20 ition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the 
department ; another by his deputy ; to a third the 
royal sign-manual is necessary. One communication 
is to be registered, and another is not. One sentence 
must be in black ink, and another in red ink. If the 

25 ablest Secretary for Ireland were moved to the India 
Board, if the ablest President of the India Board were 
moved to the War Office, he would require instruction 
on points like these ; and we do not doubt that Addison 
required such instruction when he became, for the first 

30 time, Secretary to the Lords Justices. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 207 

George the First took possession of his kingdom 
without opposition. A new ministry was formed, and 
a new Parliament favorable to the Whigs chosen. 
Sunderland was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
land ; and Addison again went to Dublin as Chief 5 
Secretary. 

At Dublin Swift resided ; and there was much spec- 
ulation about the way in which the Dean and the 
Secretary would behave towards each other. The 
relations which existed between these remarkable men 10 
form an interesting and pleasing portion of literary 
history. They had early attached themselves to the 
same political party and to the same patrons. While 
Anne's Whig ministry was in power, the visits of 
Swift to London and the official residence of Addison 15 
in Ireland had given them opportunities of knowing 
each other. They were the two shrewdest observers 
of their age. But their observations on each other 
had led them to favorable conclusions. Swift did full 
justice to the rare powers of conversation which were 20 
latent under the bashful deportment of Addison. Ad- 
dison, on the other hand, discerned much good nature 
under the severe look and manner of Swift ; and, in- 
deed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were 
two very different men. 25 

But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. 
The Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid bene- 
fits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did 
nothing more for him. His profession laid them 
under a difficulty, In the State they could not pro- 30 



208 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

mote him ; and they had reason to fear that, by be- 
stowing preferment in the Church on the author of 
the Tale of a Tub, they might give scandal to the 
public, which had no high opinion of their orthodoxy. 
5 He did not make fair allowance for the difficulties 
which prevented Halifax and Somers from serving 
him, thought himself an ill-used man, sacrificed honor 
and consistency to revenge, joined the Tories, and 
became their most formidable champion. He soon 

10 found, however, that his old friends were less to 
blame than he had supposed. The dislike with which 
the Queen and the heads of the Church regarded him 
was insurmountable ; and it was with the greatest 
difficulty that he obtained an ecclesiastical dignity of 

15 no great value, on condition of fixing his residence in 
a country which he detested. 

Difference of political opinion had produced, not 
indeed a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and 
Addison. They at length ceased altogether to see each 

20 other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact 
like that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad: 

v Ey%ea <$' aXXrjkiuv aXedi/ieOa xal di 6fi(XoW 
IJ0XX0} psv yap kfiol Tpibsq xXetroi r ixtxoupot, 
KreivetVy ov xe 0£w? ye noprj xai -Koaci xc/eiut, 
25 JIoXXo) (f au ooi 'A^ato) ivatpipev, ov xe dbvrjai.* 

It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and 
insulted nobody, should not have calumniated or in- 
sulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to 
whom neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 2 o.) 

generally seemed to find, like most other renegades, a 
peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, should have 
shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession of the 
House of Hanover had secured in England the lib- 5 
erties of the people, and in Ireland the dominion of 
the Protestant caste. To that caste Swift was more 
odious than any other man. He was hooted and even 
pelted in the streets of Dublin ; and could not venture 
to ride along the strand for his health without the 10 
attendance of armed servants. Many whom he had 
formerly served now libeled and insulted him. At 
this time Addison arrived. He had been advised not 
to show the smallest civility to the Dean of St. Pat- 
rick's. He had answered, with admirable spirit, that 15 
it might be necessary for men whose fidelity to their 
party was suspected to hold no intercourse with po- 
litical opponents ; but that one who had been a steady 
Whig in the worst times might venture, when the 
good cause was triumphant, to shake hands with an 20 
old friend who was one of the vanquished Tories. 
His kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly 
wounded spirit of Swift ; and the two great satirists 
resumed their habits of friendly intercourse. 

Those associates of Addison whose political opin- 25 
ions agreed with his shared his good fortune. He 
took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for 
Budgell a lucrative place in the same kingdom. Am- 
brose Philips was provided for in England. Steele 
had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and 30 



2IO JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

perverseness that he obtained but a very small part of 
what he thought his due. He was, however, knighted ; 
he had a place in the household ; and he subsequently 
received other marks of favor from the court. 
5 Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 171 5 
he quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board 
of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the Drum- 
mer was brought on the stage. The name of the 
author was not announced ; the piece was coldly re- 

10 ceived ; and some critics have expressed a doubt 
whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, 
both external and internal, seems decisive. It is not 
in Addison's best manner ; but it contains numerous 
passages which no other writer known to us could 

15 have produced. It was again performed after Addi- 
son's death, and, being known to be his, was loudly 
applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1715, while the rebel- 
lion was still raging in Scotland, Addison published 

20 the first number of a paper called the Freeholder. 
Among his political works the Freeholder is entitled 
to the first place. Even in the Spectator there are few 
serious papers nobler than the character of his friend 
Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers supe- 

25 rior to those in which the Tory fox-hunter is intro- 
duced. This character is the original of Squire West- 
ern, a and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and with 
a delicacy of which Fielding was altogether destitute. 
As none of Addison's works exhibit stronger marks 

30 of his genius than the Freeholder, so none does more 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 21 1 

honor to his moral character. It is difficult to extol 
too highly the candor and humanity of a political 
writer whom even the excitement of civil war cannot 
hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it is well 
known, was then the stronghold of Toryism. The 5 
High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets 
in order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and 
traitors pursued by the messengers of the government 
had been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. 
Yet the admonition which, even under such circum- 10 
stances, Addison addressed to the university, is sin- 
gularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. In- 
deed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly 
even with imaginary persons. His fox-hunter, though 
ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, 15 
and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. 
Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, 
and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was 
excellently written, complained that the ministry 
played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the 20 
trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute a 
flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the 
public spirit of the nation by means of a paper called 
the Town Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as 
his Englishman, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bai- 25 
liff of Stockbridge, as his Reader — in short, as every- 
thing that he wrote without the help of Addison. 

In the same year in which the Drummer was acted, 
and in which the first numbers of the Freeholder ap- 
peared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became 30 



212 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope 
was false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that 
Addison was jealous. The discovery was made in a 
strange manner. Pope had written the Rape of the 
5 Lock, in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. 
These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by 
none more loudly than by Addison. Then Pope 
thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes — Ariel, Momen- 
tilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel — and resolved to inter- 

IO weave the Rosicrucian mythology with the original 
fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison said 
that the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, 
and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring 
what was so excellent in trying to mend it. Pope 

I5 afterwards declared that this insidious counsel first 
opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it. 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was 
most ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it 
with great skill and success. But does it necessarily 

2Q follow that Addison's advice was bad ? And if Addi- 
son's advice was bad, does it necessarily follow that it 
was given from bad motives ? If a friend were to ask 
us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a 
lottery of which the chances were ten to one against 

_ e him, we should do our best to dissuade him from run- 
ning such a risk. Even if he were so lucky as to get 
the thirty thousand pound prize, we should not admit 
that we had counseled him ill ; and we should cer- 
tainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse 

3 o us of having been actuated by malice. We think Ad- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 213 

dison's advice good advice. It rested on a sound 
principle, the result of long and wide experience. The 
general rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful 
work of imagination has been produced, it should not 
be recast. We cannot at this moment call to mind a 5 
single instance in which this rule has been trans- 
gressed with happy effect, except the instance of the 
Rape of the Lock. Tasso recast his Jerusalem. Aken- 
side recast his Pleasures of the Imagination and his 
Epistle to Curio. Pope himself, emboldened no doubt IO 
by the success with which he had expanded and re- 
modeled the Rape of the Lock, made the same experi- 
ment on the Dunciad. All these attempts failed. Who 
was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be 
able to do what he could not himself do twice, and I5 
what nobody else has ever done? 

Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, 
why should we pronounce it dishonest? Scott tells 
us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of 
Waverley. Herder adjured Goethe not to take so un- 20 
promising a subject as Faust. Hume tried to dissuade 
Robertson from writing the History of Charles the 
Fifth. Nay, Pope himself was one of those who 
prophesied that Cato would never succeed on the 
stage, and advised Addison to print it without risking 25 
a representation. But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, Ad- 
dison had the good sense and generosity to give their 
advisers credit for the best intentions. Pope's heart 
was not of the same kind with theirs. 

In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the 3Q 



214 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Philips and 
Budgell were there ; but their sovereign got rid of 
them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After 
dinner, Addison said that he lay under a difficulty 
5 which he wished to explain. "Tickell," he said, 
"translated some time ago the first book of the Iliad. 
I have promised to look it over and correct it. I can- 
not, therefore, ask to see yours ; for that would be 
double-dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged 
10 that his second book might have the advantge of Ad- 
dison's revision. Addison readily agreed, looked over 
the second book, and sent it back with warm commen- 
dations. 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon 
'5 after this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was 
earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should 
not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should 
leave to powers which he admitted to be superior to 
his own. His only view, he said, in publishing this 
20 specimen was to bespeak the favor of the public to a 
translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made 
some progress. 

Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pro- 
nounced both the versions good, but maintained that 
25 Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave 
a decided preference to Pope's. We do not think it 
worth while to settle such a question of precedence. 
Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated the 
Iliad, unless, indeed, the word translation be used in 
30 the sense which it bears in the Midsummer Night's 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 215 

Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance with an 
ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, 
"Bless thee! Bottom, bless thee! thou are translated." 
In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope 
or Tickell may very properly exclaim, "Bless thee, 5 
Homer! thou art translated indeed." 

Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking 
that no man in Addison's situation could have acted 
more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope and to- 
wards Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an IO 
odious suspicion had sprung up in the mind of Pope. 
He fancied, and he soon firmly believed, that there 
was a deep conspiracy against his fame and his for- 
tunes. The work on which he had staked his reputa- 
tion was to be depreciated. The subscription on which I5 
rested his hopes of a competence was to be defeated. 
With this view Addison had made a rival translation ; 
Tickell had consented to father it ; and the wits of 
Button's had united to puff it. 

Is there any external evidence to support this grave 20 
accusation ? The answer is short. There is absolutely 
none. 

W r as there any internal evidence which proved Ad- 
dison to be the author of this version ? Was it a work 
which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely 25 
not. Tickell was a fellow of a college at Oxford, and 
must be supposed to have been able to construe the 
Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his friend. 
We are not aware that Pope pretended to have dis- 
covered any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. 30 



216 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Had such turns of expression been discovered, they 
would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Ad- 
dison to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned 
that he had done. 

5 Is there anything in the character of the accused 
persons which makes the accusation probable? We 
answer confidently — nothing. Tickell was long after 
this time described by Pope himself as a very fair and 
worthy man. Addison had been, during many years, 

10 before the public. Literary rivals, political opponents, 
had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor fac- 
tion, in its utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a 
single deviation from the laws of honor and of social 
morality. Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous 

15 of fame, and capable of stooping to base and wicked 
acts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, would 
his vices have remained latent so long? He was a 
writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe? He 
was a writer of comedy: had he not done ample jus- 

20 tice to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? 
He was a pamphleteer : have not his good nature and 
generosity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in 
fame and his adversary in politics? 

That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy 

25 seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should 
have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly im- 
probable. But that these two men should have con- 
spired together to commit a villainy seems to us im- 
probable in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us 

30 of their intercourse tends to prove that it was not the 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 217 

intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These are 
some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth his 
sorrow over the coffin of Addison : 

" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 

A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 5 

Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 

To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 

When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 

When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 

In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 10 

And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart ; 

Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, 

Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 

In what words, we should like to know, did this 
guardian genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such 15 
as the editor of the Satirist 11 would hardly dare to pro- 
pose to the editor of the Age?* 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation 
which he knew to be false. We have not the smallest 
doubt that he believed it to be true ; and the evidence 20 
on which he believed it he found in his own bad heart. 
His own life was one long series of tricks, as mean 
and as malicious as that of which he suspected Addi- 
son and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To 
injure, to insult, and to save himself from the conse- 25 
quences of injury and insult by lying and equivocat- 
ing, was the habit of his life. He published a lam- 
poon on the Duke of Chandos ; he was taxed with it ; 
and he lied and equivocated. He published a lampoon 
on Aaron Hill ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied and 30 



218 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

equivocated. He published a still fouler lampoon on 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; he was taxed with it ; 
and he lied with more than usual effrontery and vehe- 
mence. He puffed himself and abused his enemies 
5 under feigned names. He robbed himself of his own 
letters, and then raised the hue and cry after them. 
Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of interest, 
and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to 
have committed from love of fraud alone. He had a 

10 habit of stratagem, a pleasure in outwitting all who 
came near him. Whatever his object might be, the 
indirect road to it was that which he preferred. For 
Bolingbroke Pope undoubtedly felt as much love and 
veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any hu- 

15 man being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was 
discovered that, from no motive except the mere love 
of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross per- 
fidy to Bolingbroke. 

Nothing was more natural than that such a man as 

20 this should attribute to others that which he felt 
within himself. A plain, probable, coherent explana- 
tion is frankly given to him. He is certain that it is 
all a romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, 
and even friendly, is pursued towards him. He is 

25 convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue 

by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain 

to ask him for proofs. He has none, and "wants none, 

except those which he carries in his own bosom. 

Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addi- 

3° son to retaliate for the first and last time cannot now 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 219 

be known with certainty. We have only Tope's story, 
which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing 
some reflections which stung Pope to the quick. What 
those reflections were, and whether they were reflec- 
tions of which he had a right to complain, we have 5 
now no means of deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a 
foolish and vicious lad, who regarded Addison with 
the feelings with which such lads generally regard 
their best friends, told Tope, truly or falsely, that 
this pamphlet had been written by Addison's direc- 10 
tion. When we consider what a tendency stories have 
to grow, in passing even from one honest man to an- 
other honest man, and when we consider that to the 
name of honest man neither Tope nor the Earl of 
Warwick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach 15 
much importance to this anecdote. 

It is certain, however, that Tope was furious. He 
had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. 
In his anger he turned this prose into the brilliant 
and energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, 20 
or ought to know by heart, and sent them to Addison. 
One charge which Tope has enforced with great skill 
is probably not without foundation. Addison was, we 
are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over a 
circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations 25 
which these famous lines are intended to convey, 
scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and 
some are certainly false. That Addison was not in 
the habit of "damning with faint praise" appears 
from innumerable passages in his writings, and from 30 



220 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

none more than from those in which he mentions 
Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, 
to describe a man who made the fortune of almost 
every one of his intimate friends as "so obliging that 

5 he ne'er obliged.*' 

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly 
we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of 
the weaknesses with which he was reproached is 
highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, ac- 

10 quitted him of the gravest part of the accusation. 
He acted like himself. As a satirist he was, at his 
own weapons, more than Pope's match ; and he would 
have been at no loss for topics. A distorted and 
diseased body, tenanted by a yet more distorted and 

15 diseased mind; spite and envy thinly disguised by 
sentiments as benevolent and noble as those which 
Sir Peter Teazle a admired in Mr. Joseph Surface; 3 a 
feeble, sickly licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy 
and noisome images ; — these were things which a 

20 genius less powerful than that to which we owe the 
Spectator could easily have held up to the mirth and 
hatred of mankind. Addison had, moreover, at his 
command other means of vengeance which a bad man 
would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in 

25 the State. Pope was a Catholic ; and in those times, 
a minister would have found it easy to harass the 
most innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexa- 
tions. Pope, near twenty years later, said that 
"through the lenity of the government alone he could 

30 live with comfort." "Consider," he exclaimed, "the 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 2 2I 

injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a 
private person, under penal laws and many other dis- 
advantages." It is pleasing to reflect that the only 
revenge which Addison took was to insert in the 
Freeholder a warm encomium on the translation of the 5 
Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of learning to put down 
their names as subscribers. There could be no doubt, 
he said, from the specimens already published, that 
the masterly hand of Pope would do as much for 
Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From that 10 
time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by 
Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friend- 
ship was, of course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to 
play the ignominious part of talebearer on this occa- 15 
sion may have been his dislike of the marriage which 
was about to take place between his mother and Addi- 
son. The Countess Dowager, a daughter of the old 
and honorable family of the Middletons of Chirk, — 
a family which, in any country but ours, would be 20 
called noble, — resided at Holland House. Addison 
had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a small 
dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea 
is now a district of London, and Holland House may 
be called a town residence. But in the days of Anne 25 
and George the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wan- 
dered between green hedges and over fields bright 
with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of 
the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were coun- 
try neighbors, and became intimate friends. The 30 



222 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

great wit and scholar tried to allure the young lord 
from the fashionable amusements of beating watch- 
men, breaking windows, and rolling women in hogs- 
heads down Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and 
5 the practice of virtue. These well-meant exertions 
did little good, however, either to the disciple or to 
the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake; and 
Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of the 
Countess has been celebrated by poets in language 

10 which, after a very large allowance has been made 
for flattery, would lead us to believe that she was a 
fine woman ; and her rank doubtless heightened her 
attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of 
the lover appear to have risen and fallen with the 

15 fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length 
matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ireland 
for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory 
verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us 
as a little strange that, in these verses, Addison 

20 should be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil 
omen for a swain just about to cross St. George's 
Channel. 

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed 
able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason 

25 to expect preferment even higher than that which he 
had attained. He had inherited the fortune of a 
brother who died Governor of Madras. He had pur- 
chased an estate in Warwickshire, and had been wel- 
comed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of 

30 the neighboring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, Wil- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 223 

liam Somervile. In August, 1716, the newspapers 
announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for 
many excellent works, both in verse and prose, had 
espoused the Countess Dowager of Warwick. 

He now fixed his abode at Holland House, — a 5 
house which can boast of a greater number of inmates 
distinguished in political and literary history than any 
other private dwelling in England. His portrait still 
hangs there. The features are pleasing ; the complex- 
ion is remarkably fair ; but in the expression we trace 10 
rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force 
and keenness of his intellect. 

Not long after his marriage he reached the height 
of civil greatness. The Whig Government had, 
during some time, been torn by internal dissensions. 15 
Lord Townshend a led one section of the Cabinet, 
Lord Sunderland the other. At length, in the spring 
of 1 717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired 
from office, and was accompanied by Walpole and 
Cowper. Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct the 20 
Ministry; and Addison was appointed Secretary of 
State. It is certain that the seals were pressed upon 
him, and were at first declined by him. Men equally 
versed in official business might easily have been 
found ; and his colleagues knew that they could not 25 
expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his 
elevation to his popularity, to his stainless probity, 
and to his literary fame. 

But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when 
his health began to fail. From one serious attack he 30 



224 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

recovered in the autumn ; and his recovery was cele- 
brated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by 
Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, 
Cambridge. A relapse soon took place ; and in the 
5 following spring, Addison was prevented by a severe 
asthma from discharging the duties of his post. He 
resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs, 
a young man whose natural parts, though little im- 
proved by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose 

10 graceful person and winning manners had made him 
generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had 
lived, would probably have been the most formidable 
of all the rivals of Walpole. 

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. a The minis- 

i5ters, therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a re- 
tiring pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In 
what form this pension was given we are not told by 
the biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it 
is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the 

20 House of Commons. 

Rest of mind and body seems to have reestablished 
his health; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, 
for having set him free both from his office and from 
his asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, 

25 and he meditated many works, — a tragedy on the 
death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a 
treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of this 
last performance a part, which we could well spare, 
has come down to us. 

30 But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradu- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 225 

ally prevailed against all the resources of medicine. 
It is melancholy to think that the last months of such 
a life should have been overclouded both by domestic 
and by political vexations. A tradition which began 
early, which has been generally received, and to 5 
which we have nothing to oppose, has represented his 
wife as an arrogant and imperious woman. It is said 
that, till his health failed him, he was glad to escape 
from the Countess Dowager and her magnificent din- 
ing-room, blazing with the gilded devices of the 10 
House of Rich, to some tavern where he could enjoy 
a laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle 
of claret with the friends of his happier days. All 
those friends, however, were not left to him. Sir 
Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by va- 15 
rious causes. He considered himself as one who, in 
evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political 
principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was 
triumphant, a large compensation for what he had 
suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took 20 
a very different view of his claims. They thought 
that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought 
them as well as himself into trouble, and, though they 
did not absolutely neglect him, doled out* favors to 
him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he 25 
should be angry with them, and especially angry with 
Addison. But what above all seems to have disturbed 
Sir Richard was the elevation of Tickell, who, at 
thirty, was made by Addison Undersecretary of State, 
while the editor of the Tatlcr and Spectator, the 30 



226 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

author of the Crisis, the member for Stockbridge who 
had been persecuted for firm adherence to the House 
of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many so- 
licitations and complaints, to content himself with a 
5 share in the patent of Drury Lane Theater. Steele 
himself says, in his celebrated letter to Congreve, 
that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, "incurred 
the warmest resentment of other gentlemen" ; and 
everything seems to indicate that of those resentful 
10 gentlemen Steele was himself one. 

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he 
considered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of 
quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided 
against itself, was rent by a new schism. The cele- 
15 brated bill for limiting the number of peers had been 
brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in 
rank of all the nobles whose religion permitted them 
to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible author of the 
measure. But it was supported, and, in truth, de- 
20 vised by the Prime Minister. 

We are satisfied that the bill was most pernicious ; 
and we fear that the motives which induced Sunder- 
land to frame it were not honorable to him. But we 
cannot deny that it was supported by many of the 
25 best and wisest men of that age. Nor was this 
strange. The royal prerogative had, within the mem- 
ory of the generation then in the vigor of life, been so 
grossly abused that it was still regarded with a jeal- 
ousy which, when the peculiar situation of the House 
30 of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called 






MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 227 

immoderate. The particular prerogative of creating 
peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly 
abused by Queen Anne's last Ministry ; and even the 
Tories admitted that her Majesty, in swamping, as 
it has since been called, the Upper House, had done 5 
what only an extreme case could justify. The theory 
of the English constitution, according to many high 
authorities, was that three independent powers, the 
sovereign, the nobility, and the commons, ought con- 
stantly to act as checks on each other. If this theory 10 
were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of 
these powers under the absolute control of the other 
two was absurd. But if the number of peers were un- 
limited, it could not well be denied that the Upper 
House was under the absolute control of the Crown 15 
and the Commons, and was indebted only to their 
moderation for any power which it might be suffered 
to retain. 

Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with 
the ministers. Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, 20 
vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for 
help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a 
paper called the Old Whig he answered, and indeed 
refuted, Steele's arguments. It seems to us that the 
premises of both the controversialists were unsound ; 25 
that, on those premises, Addison reasoned well and 
Steele ill, and that consequently Addison brought 
out a false conclusion, while Steele blundered upon 
the truth. In style, in wit, and in politeness, 
Addison maintained his superiority, though the Old 30 



228 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Whig is by no means one of his happiest perform- 
ances. 

At first, both the anonymous opponents observed 
the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far 
5 forgot himself as to throw an odious imputation on 
the morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addi- 
son replied with severity, but, in our opinion, with less 
severity than was due. to so grave an offense against 
morality and decorum; nor did he, in his just anger, 

10 forget for a moment the laws of good taste and good 
breeding. One calumny which has been often re- 
peated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to 
expose. It is asserted in the Biographia Britannica 
that Addison designated Steele as "little Dicky." 

15 This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had 
never seen the Old Whig, and was therefore excus- 
able. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who 
has seen the Old Whig, and for whom therefore there 
is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little 

20 Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that Steele's name 
was Richard. It is equally true that the words "little 
Isaac" occur in the Duenna* and that Newton's 
name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addi-" 
son's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele than 

25 Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the 
words "little Dicky" to Steele, we deprive a very 
lively and ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, 
but of all its meaning. Little Dicky was the nick- 
name of Henry Norris, a an actor of remarkably small 

30 stature, but of great humor, who played the usurer 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



229 



Gomez, then a most popular part, in Dryden's Span- 
ish Friar. 

The merited reproof which Steele had received, 
though softened by some kind and courteous ex- 
pressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little 5 
force and great acrimony ; but no rejoinder appeared. 
Addison was fast hastening to his grave ; and had, we 
may well suppose, little disposition to prosecute a 
quarrel with an old friend. His complaint had ter- 
minated in dropsy. He bore up long and manfully. 10 
But at length he abandoned all hope, dismissed his 
physicians, and calmly prepared himself to die. 

His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and 
dedicated them a very few days before his death to 
Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and grace- 15 
ful eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator. In this, his 
last composition, he alluded to his approaching end 
in words so manly, so cheerful, and so tender that it 
is difficult to read them without tears. At the same 
time he earnestly recommended the interests of Tickell 20 
to the care of Craggs. 

Within a few hours of the time at which this dedi- 
cation was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, a who 
was then living by his wits about town, to come to 
Holland House. Gay went, and was received with 25 
great kindness. To his amazement his forgiveness 
was implored by the dying man. Poor Gay, the most 
good-natured and simple of mankind, could not 
imagine what he had to forgive. There was, how- 
ever, some wrong, the remembrance of which weighed 



230 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS 

on Addison's mind, and which he declared himself 
anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme ex- 
haustion ; and the parting was doubtless a friendly 
one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to 

5 serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had 
been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is this 
improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the 
royal family. But in the Queen's days he had been 
the eulogist of Bolingbroke, and was still connected 

iowith many Tories. It is not strange that Addison, 
while heated by conflict, should have thought himself 
justified in obstructing the preferment of one whom 
he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it 
strange that, when reviewing his whole life, and 

15 earnestl}' scrutinizing all his motives, he should 
think he had acted an unkind and ungenerous 
part in using his power against a distressed man 
of letters, who was as harmless and as helpless as a 
child. 

20 One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. 
It appears that Addison, on his death bed, called him- 
self to a strict account, and was not at ease till he had 
asked pardon for an injury which it was not even sus- 
pected that he had committed, — for an injury which 

25 would have caused disquiet only to a very tender con- 
science. Is it not then reasonable to infer that, if he 
had reallv been guilty of forming a base conspiracy 
against the fame and fortunes of a rival, he would 
have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime ? 

30 But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and evi- 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



231 



dence for the defense when there is neither argument 
nor evidence for the accusation. 

The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. 
His interview with his son-in-law is universally 
known. "See," he said, "how a Christian can die." 5 
The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly 
cheerful character. The feeling which predominates 
in all his devotional writings is gratitude. God was 
to him the all-wise and all-powerful friend who had 
watched over his cradle with more than maternal ten- 10 
derness ; who had listened to his cries before they 
could form themselves in prayer ; who had preserved 
his youth from the snares of vice ; who had made his 
cup run over with worldly blessings ; who had doubled 
the value of those blessings by bestowing a thankful 15 
heart to enjoy them, and dear friends to partake 
them ; who had relinked the waves of the Ligurian 
gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the Campagna, 
and had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. 
Of the Psalms, a his favorite was that which repre- 20 
sents the Ruler of all things under the endearing 
image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the flock 
safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows 
well watered and rich with herbage. On that good- 
ness to which he ascribed all the happiness of his life 25 
he relied in the hour of death with the love which 
casteth out fear. He died on the 17th of June, 1719. 
He had just entered on his forty-eighth year. 

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber , a 
and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. 30 



2$2 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, 
one of those Tories who had loved and honored the 
most accomplished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and 
led the procession by torchlight, round the shrine of 
5 Saint Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to 
the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north side 
of that chapel, in the vault of the House of Albe- 
marle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of 
Montagu. Yet a few months, and the same mourners 

10 passed again along the same aisle. The same sad 
anthem was again chanted. 'The same vault was 
again opened ; and the coffin of Craggs was placed 
close to the coffin of Addison. 

Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addi- 

15 son; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell be- 
wailed his friend in an elegy which would do honor to 
the greatest name in our literature, and which unites 
the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tender- 
ness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was pre- 

20 fixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, which 
was published, in 1721, by subscription. The names 
of the subscribers proved how widely his fame had 
been spread. That his countrymen should be eager to 
possess his writings, even in a costly form, is not 

25 wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though English 
literature was then little studied on the continent, 
Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, marshals of 
France, should be found in the list. Among the most 
remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, 

30 of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of 



MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



233 



the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the 
Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardi- 
nal Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though 
eminently beautiful, is in some important points defec- 
tive ; nor, indeed, do we yet possess a complete codec- '5 
tion of Addison's writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble 
widow nor any of his powerful and attached friends 
should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, 
inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. 10 
It was not till three generations had laughed and wept 
over his pages that the omission was supplied by the 
public veneration. At length, in our own time, his 
image, skillfully graven, appeared in the Poet's 
Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, 15 
clad in his dressing gown and freed from his wig, 
stepping from his parlor at Chelsea into his trim little 
garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club or 
the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the 
next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of 20 
national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, 
to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure 
English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life 
and manners. It was due, above all, to the great 
satirist^ who alone knew how to use ridicule without 
abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected 
a great social reform ; and who reconciled wit and 
virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during 
which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and 
virtue by fanaticism. 30 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



ESSAY ON MILTON. 

Page 39, line I. Joannis Miltoni. — The literal title of 
Milton's work is, Two Posthumous Books of John Milton, 
Englishman, on Christian Doctrine. 

P. 39, I. 14. Mr. Skinner, Merchant. — Since the publica- 
tion of Macaulay's Essay evidence has been adduced show- 
ing that the Skinner here mentioned was not the Cyriac 
Skinner of Sonnets XXI and XXII, but a distant relative. 

P. 39, 1. 17. Wood and Toland. — Two seventeenth cen- 
tury biographers of Milton. 

P. 41, 1. 3. Quintilian. — The great Roman rhetorician of 
the first century A. D. The line is quoted from Milton's 
Sonnet XI. Milton had written a treatise entitled Tctrachor- 
don. in which new ideas of divorce were advocated. The 
Scotch Presbyterians denounced Milton's views and ridiculed 
the name of his treatise. Milton reminds them that Scotch 
names are not superlatively musical : 

" Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon, 
Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galaspe ? 
Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek 
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." 

P. 41, 1. 8. Denham. — Sir John Denham (1615-1668) and 
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) were both Royalist poets, i. c, 
sympathizers with Charles I. In his lines on The Death and 
Burial of Mr. Abraham Cozvlcy, Denham wrote: 

" Horace's wit and Virgil's state 
He did not steal, but emulate ; 
And when he would like them appear, 
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear." 

237 



238 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 41, 1. 21. Arianism. — Arius (256-336 A. D.) denied 
the doctrine of the Trinity, contending (against Athanasius) 
that the Son was subordinate to, and his powers derivative 
from, the Father. Arianism is not inconsistent with belief in 
the divinity of Christ or in the inspiration of the Bible. 
Milton believed both doctrines. A tendency toward Arianism 
is seen in Paradise Lust, VI, 669 ff. ; VII, 163 ff. ; X, 68 if. ; 
XI, 20 ff. 

P. 41, 1. 29. Observation of the Sabbath. — The word 
"observation" in the sense of "observance" was obsolescent in 
1825, and is obsolete now. In the preface to The Last Days 
of Pompeii (1834), Bulwer quotes from Scott as follows: 
"Let me avail myself of the words I refer to, and humbly and 
reverently appropriate them for the moment: 'It is true that 
I neither can, nor do pretend, to the" observation [observ- 
ance?] of complete accuracy even in matters of outward cos- 
tume' " — in which the brackets and query are Bulwer's. 

P. 42, 1. 7. Defensio Populi. — This treatise published in 
1653 cost Milton his eyesight. It was a reply to the Defensio 
Regia of Salmatius. Both books are filled with the bitterest 
personalities, and are interesting only as illustrations of the 
depths to which controversy of that time had descended. 

P. 43, 1. 29. "An age too late." — "Milton appears to sus- 
pect," says Johnson, "that souls partake of the general de- 
generacy, and is not without some fear that his book is to 
be written in an age too late for heroic poesy." See Paradise 
Lost, IX, 42-47. 

P. 44, 1. 8. We think that. — The superficial view which 
Macaulay here propounds was not original with him. In a 
lecture On Poetry in General, delivered in 1818 and published 
the same year, William Hazlitt, a subtler critic than Macau- 
lay, used these words: "It cannot be concealed, however, 
that the progress of knowledge and refinement has a tendency 
to circumscribe the limits of the imagination, and to clip the 
wings of poetry." 

"Milton had not learned," says Dr. Charming (Works, 






NOTES. 



239 



Vol. I), "the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry 
flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination 
shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious 
age ; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest 
it should oppress and smother his genius." 

Three years after the appearance of the Essay on Milt mi, 
Carlyle published in The Edinburgh Review his Essay on 
Hums. The following excerpt leaves little standing ground 
for Hazlitt and Macaulay: "But sometimes still harder requi- 
sitions are laid on the poor aspirant to poetry ; for it is hinted 
that he should have been bom two centuries ago; inasmuch 
as poetry, about that date, vanished from the earth, and be- 
came no longer attainable by men ! Such cobweb speculations 
have, now and then, overhung the field of literature ; but 
they obstruct not the growth of any plant there: the Shake- 
speare or the Burns, unconsciously and merely as lie walks 
onward, silently brushes them away. Is not every genius an 
impossibility till he appear? Why do we call him new and 
original, if we saw where his marble was lying, and what 
fabric he could rear from it? It is not the material, but the 
workman that is wanting. It is not the dark place that hin- 
ders, but the dim eye." 

P. 45, I. 5. Mrs. Marcet's little dialogues. — Mrs. Mar- 
cet's Conversations on Political Economy was widely read 
during the early part of the century. 

P. 45, 1. 7. Montague or Walpole. — Charles Montague 
(1661-1715), Earl of Halifax, is treated more at length in the 
Essay on Addison, pp. 134, 135; Sir Robert Walpole (167G- 
1745), the great financier of George IPs reign, is discussed in 
two of Macaulay's essays : Letters of Horace Walpole to Sir 
Horace Mann and Thackeray's History of the Earl of Chat- 
ham. 

P. 46, 11. 10, 11. Shafteseury. . . . Helvetius. — The 
third Lord Shaftesbury (1671-1713), the friend of Pope, may 
be said, in his Characteristics, to have introduced the phrase 
"'moral sense" into literature; Claude Adrian Helvetius 



240 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

(1715-1771) wrote a book, Dc V Esprit, to prove that self- 
interest is the motive of all human actions. 

P. 46, 1. 22. Fable of the Bees. — Bernard de Mandeville 
(1670-1733) attempted to prove in this Fable that private 
vices are public benefits. 

P. 47, 1. 16. See Midsummer Night's Dream, V, 1. 

P. 48, 1. 24. The Greek rhapsodists. — In Plato's Ion, a 
Greek rhapsodist, replying to a question of Socrates, says: 
"Yes, I must confess that at the tale of pity my eyes are 
filled with tears, and when I speak of heroes my hair stands 
on end and my heart beats." Macaulay characteristically in- 
terprets this as "convulsions." 

P. 49, 1. 13. We cannot unite. — If Macaulay could not 
do this, so much the worse for him. A critic of the first order 
would not so commit himself nor would he employ "decep- 
tion" in this connection. Fiction is not deception. Are the 
parables of Christ (Matthew xiii) or Portia's plea for mercy 
{Merchant of Venice, IV) invalidated if we grant that they 
are not to be taken literally? Fiction is frequently false to 
the letter that it may be true to the spirit. 

P. 49, 1. 30. In our own time. — The thrust is at Words- 
worth (1 770- 1 850). 

P. 50. 1. 4. No poet. — See Introduction, pp. 21, 22. 

P. 50, 1. 13. Petrarch. — Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) 
tried to restore classic Latin, but his own Latin was not of the 
best. 

P. 50, 1. 16. Cowley. — See Note on page 41, line 8. 

P. 51, 1. 3. The epistle to Manso. — Manso, the old Mar- 
quis of Villa, entertained Milton when the latter visited Na- 
ples in 1638. On his return Milton wrote Manso a beautiful 
letter in Latin hexameters. 

P. 51, 1. 17. See Paradise Lost, IV, 551-554. 

P. 53, 1. 11. The burial-places of the memory. — In his 
recent book on Style, Professor Walter Raleigh says: "The 
writer's pianoforte is the dictionary. . . . The mind of 
man is peopled like some silent city with a sleeping company 



NOTES. 24I 

of reminiscences, associations, impressions, attitudes, emo- 
tions, to be awakened into fierce activity at the sound of 
words." 

P. 53, 1. 16. The Arabian tale. — See in Arabian Nights 
the story of AH Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

P. 53, 1. 25. Muster-rolls. — See, for example, Paradise 
Lost, I, 580-585 ; II, 525-545 ; IV, 276-282. 

P- 53. 1- 3°- The dwelling-place of our infancy. — Tre- 
velyan says of Macaulay : "Nothing caused him so much 
pleasure ... as a visit to any scene that he had known in 
his earlier years." 

P. 55, 1. 15. Harold. — The hero of Byron's best known 
poem, Childc Harold's Pilgrimage. 

P. 55, 1. 28. ^schylus. — The three greatest writers of 
Greek tragedy were ^Eschylus (525-456 B. C. ), Sophocles 
(495-405 B. C. ), and Euripides (480-406). They may be 
grouped around the battle of Salamis, 480 B. C. : yEschylus 
took part in the battle, Sophocles was one of the boys who 
sang in choral celebration of the victory, and Euripides is 
said to have been born on the island during the battle. 

P. 56, 1. 4. Herodotus. — Herodotus (484-424 B. C.) 
wrote of the struggle between Asia and Europe ; but there 
are many digressions upon Egypt. He is a most entertaining 
raconteur, but by no means trustworthy as an historian. 

P. 56, 1. 10. Pindar. — Pindar (522-443 B. C), a Theban, 
was the most famous writer of Greek odes. 

P. 56, 11. 16, 18. Clytemnestra to Agamemnon. — A pas- 
sage in the most noted play of .Eschylus, Agamemnon (Eng- 
lished in Browning's Aristophanes' Apology). Description 
of the seven Argive chiefs, from the same poet's Seven 
against Thebes. 

P. 57, 1. 7. Sad Electra's poet. — In later years Macaulay 
changed his opinion of Euripides. "I can hardly account," 
says he, "for the contempt which, at school and college, I felt 
for Euripides. I own that I like him now better than Soph- 
ocles." 



242 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 57, 1. 8. Queen of Fairy-land. — See Midsummer 
Night's Dream,, IV, 1. 

P. 58. 1. 1. Masque. — The opera is the modern equivalent 
of the masque, which was a species of drama containing 
spoken verse, music, and dancing. 

P. 58, 11. 4-6. Faithful Shepherdess. — Written by John 
Fletcher (1579-1625) ; the Aminta is by Tasso ( 15.441595), 
the Pastor Fido by Guarini (1537-1612). All three are pas- 
toral dramas. 

P. 59, 1. 22. See Comus, 11. 1012, 1013. 

P. 50, 1. 29. Minor poems. — See Remarks on the Essay 
on Milton, Introduction, p. 33. 

P. 60, 1. 7. That Milton was mistaken. — Milton's 
nephew. Philips, says that when people called Paradise Re- 
gained inferior to Paradise Lost, "he [Milton] could not hear 
with patience any such thing related to him." 

P. 61, 1. 14. These references may be verified in any of the 
English translations of Dante. The best are Cary's, Long- 
fellow's, and the prose translation of Professor Charles Eliot 
Norton. 

P. 62, 1. 11. Mr. Cary's translation. — This incomparable 
version, finished in 1812, has recently been re-edited by Dr. 
Oscar Kuhns, and is published in a cheap student's edition 
by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

P. 63, 1. 2T. Amadis. — He is the hero of a popular medi- 
eval romance, Amadis of Gaul, in which vague exaggeration 
and impossible situations take the place of the minute and 
life-like details which Dean Swift introduces in Gulliver's 
Travels. 

P. 65, 1. 24. Secondary cause. — For Gibbon's famous five 
causes of the growth of Christianity, see Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire, Chap. XV. 

P. 66. 11. 7, 8. The Academy. — The academy denotes the 
Platonic philosophy. The Portico. — That of Zeno, founder 
of the Stoic philosophy, 



NOTES. 



243 



P. 66, 1. 22. The men who demolished the images. — 
This sentence was immediately quoted by a Hindoo lawyer 
against Dr. John Henry Barrows in his recent evangelistic 
tour of India, when the Doctor made some unfavorable com- 
ments on idolatry. See Barrows's The Christian Conquest of 
Asia (1899), p. 69. 

P. 68, 1. 27. Don Juan. — In Mozart's opera of this name 
the hero sups with a devil and is then carried away by him. 

P. 69, 1. 17. Fee-faw-fum. — Macaulay doubtless had in 
mind such passages as are found in Tasso's Jerusalem De- 
livered, IV, and Klopstock's Messias, II. 

P. 71, 1. 14. Modern beggars for fame. — "We never could 
very clearly understand," says Macaulay in his Essay on 
Byron, "how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, 
should be so popular in writing." 

P. 72, 1. 11. All the portraits of him. — About ten years 
after Macaulay wrote, Richard Henry Wilde, of Augusta, Ga., 
discovered in Florence an authentic fresco portrait of Dante 
drawn by Giotto on the wall of the Bargello. It is the Giotto 
portrait that Carlyle describes in his Hero as Poet. 

P. 73, I. 25. Retires to his hovel to die. — This is a gross 
exaggeration employed for rhetorical effect. Masson shows 
that Milton's annual income after the Restoration was not 
less than $3,500 of modern money. He was lovingly cared 
for by his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull. 

P. 74, I. 2. Theocritus. — The greatest of pastoral poets. 
He lived in the third century B. C. Thirty-one of his poems, 
chiefly idyls, have come down to us (see Mr. Andrew Lang's 
translation of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus). Ariosto 
(1474-1533) wrote many lyric poems, but is known chiefly by 
his Orlando Furioso. 

P. 74, 1. 21. Filicaja. — An Italian sonneteer of the seven- 
teenth century ; for Petrarch see Note on p. 50, I. 13. 

P. 75, 1. 24. Oromasdes and Arimanes. — Or Ormuzd 
and Ahriman, the contending spirits of good and evil in the 
Parsee or Zoroastrian religion. 



244 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 76, 1. 16. The lion in the fable. — See La Fontaine, 
III, 10, or .<Esop, 63. 

P. 76, 1. 21. The books here mentioned are out of date 
now. The best defense of Charles is Disraeli's Commen- 
taries on the Life and Reign of Charles I. As to Cromwell, 
there is no second to Carlyle's Oliver Cromzvcll's Letters and 
Speeches (1845). An interesting survey of the period may 
lie found in Green's History of the English People, Vol. Ill, 
Chap. V-XII. The latest biography of Cromwell is that of 
Mr. John Morley in The Century Magazine for 1900, pro- 
fusely illustrated, which has since appeared in book form. 
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt wrote a Life of Cromwell for Scrib- 
ncr's Magazine for the same year. 

P. 78, 1. 7. Laud. — William Laud (1573-1645) was made 
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. He was one of Charles's 
most dauntless supporters. "He directed all the powers of a 
clear, narrow mind and a dogged will to the realization of a 
single aim. His resolve was to raise the Church of England 
to what he conceived to be its real position as a branch, 
though a reformed branch, of the great Catholic Church 
throughout the world; protesting alike against the innova- 
tions of Rome and the innovations of Calvin, and basing its 
doctrines and usages on those of the Christian communion in 
the centuries which preceded the Council of Nicaea." (Green's 
History of the English People, Chap. VIII.) 

P. 79, 1. 5. See Paradise Lost, I, 164, 165. 

P. 79, 1. 20. Talk to them of Naples. — That is, these 
anti-Catholic Tories did not sympathize with the liberal move- 
ments of 1825 in foreign lands as Whigs like Macaulay did. 
They are really, therefore, opposing the better part of Wil- 
liam's policy, and at the same time applauding his severity 
toward Irish Catholics. This severity Macaulay does not 
condemn as a policy of the Revolution of 1688, but as a latter- 
day policy he considers it needless and unjust. 

P. 79, 1. 29. Jacobite slander. — All the coins of James 
II, who preceded William III, had Jacobus, the Latin for 



NOTES. 245 

James, stamped upon them, and all who sympathized with 
James were called Jacobites. 

P. 80, 1. 6. Ferdinand the Catholic. — It is possible that 
Macaulay alludes to Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516), and 
Frederick V (1596-1632), at one time the leader of ihe 
Protestant princes of Germany ; but it is more likely that 
he has in mind the respective kings of Spain and Prussia 
in 1825. 

P. 80, 1. 17. Goldsmith's Abridgment. — Oliver Gold- 
smith (1728-1774) wrote a perfunctory History of England, 
and afterwards An Abridgment of the same. 

P. 83, 1. 25. Le Roi le veut. — The King wills it, a form 
of consent handed down from Norman times, and still em- 
ployed by English sovereigns. 

P. 84, 1. 12. Oliver Cromwell. — A statue of Oliver Crom- 
well has just been erected in Westminster Abbey, on the gate- 
way of which his impaled head rotted for twenty years. Such 
a statue is a tribute not only to Cromwell, but to Macaulay 
and Carlyle as well. 

P. 84, 1. 22. We charge him. — Note the studied structure 
of this famous paragraph. Would it have been improved if, 
instead of "We charge him. . . and we are told," "We accuse 
him . . . and the defense is," "We censure him . . . and we 
are informed," Macaulay had used throughout only the first, 
"We charge him . . . and we are told"? Compare Burke's 
ringing repetition of "I impeach him" in his speech on War- 
ren Hastings. 

P. 86, 1. 16. The unmerited fate of Strafford. — Thomas 
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford and adviser of Charles I, was 
executed in 1641. Macaulay discusses this proceeding in the 
Essay on Hallam's Constitutional History. See also Brown- 
ing's Strafford (1837), a five-act tragedy. 

P. 86, 1. 24. Fifth-monarchy-men. — So called because 
they believed that inasmuch as the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, 
and Roman monarchies had passed away, it was their duty 
to inaugurate by force the fifth monarchy, that of Christ. 



246 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 88, 1. 30. Ariosto. — See Note, p. 74, 1. 2. The refer- 
ence is to Orlando Furioso, Canto XLIII. 

P. 89, 1. 13. She grovels. — Other writers would have said, 
"She grovels, hisses, and stings." 

P. 91, 1. 8. Jeffreys. — The notorious Chief Justice whom 
James made lord high chancellor after the "Bloody Circuit." 

P. 93, 1. 12. 7Etsieje. — "vEneae magni dextra cadis" 
(rflncid, X, 830) : "By the right arm of great ^neas thou 
fallest." See Note on p. 42, 1. 7. 

P. 94, 1. 26. Bolivar. — "The Liberator," the Washington 
of South America. He was at the height of his fame in 
1825. 

P. 96, 1. 26. Then came those days. — This paragraph 
has an eloquence beyond the reach of mere rhetoric. It intro- 
duces, too, the section of the Essay that has become a perma- 
nent part of nineteenth century literature. 

P. 97, 1. 9. Anathema Maranatha. — See I Corinthians 

xvi, 22. 

P. 97, 1. 11. Belial and Moloch. — See Paradise Lost, II, 
108 and II, 43. 

P. 99, 1. 15. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, XV, 57. Hoole's 
version is : 

" Behold the fatal spring where laughter dwells, 
Dire poison lurking in its secret cells ; 
Here let us guard our thoughts, our passions rein, 
And every loose desire in bonds detain." 

Macaulay is warning the reader against the Tory view of 
the Puritans, a view reflected in Butler's Hudibras and in 
Scott's Woodstock and Peveril of the Peak. 

P. 100, 1. 4. Bassanio. — See Merchant of Venice, III, 2. 

P. 102, 1. 13. Vane. — Sir Harry Vane (1612-1662) was 
governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in i636-'37. He was 
one of the fifth-monarchy men. See Note on p. 86, 1. 24. 

P. 102, 1. 15. Fleetwood. — Charles Fleetwood was Crom- 
well's son-in-law. When the control of the army was thrust 



NOTES. 247 

upon him after Cromwell's death, he is reported to have 
said (Clarendon's History, XVI. 108), "God has spit in my 
face." 

P. 103, 1. 11. Sir Artegal's iron man. — See Spenser's 
Fairie Queene, V. 

P. 103, 11. 26, 27. Their Dunstans. — St. Dunstan (925- 
988) was celebrated for the strict monastic discipline that he 
enforced throughout England; De Montfort (1150-1218), 
father of the great Simon De Montfort, was a leader in the 
fierce persecution of the Albigenses; St. Dominic (1170- 
122 1 ), a Spaniard, was the founder of the Dominicans; Esco- 
bar (1589-1669), a Spanish Jesuit, declared that purity of 
intention justifies wrong actions. 

P. 104, 1. 8. Thomases. — See John xx, 25. Gallios. — 
See Acts xviii, 17. 

P. 104, 1. 13. The Brissotines. — The Girondists or mod- 
erate republicans, whose leaders were executed during the 
Reign of Terror of 1793. 

P. 105, 1. 6. The Janizaries. — These "new troops" con- 
stituted the Sultan's guard, but were suppressed in 1826. 

P. 105, 1. 19. Duessa. — See Spenser's Fairie Queene, I. 

P. 106, 1. 22. See Sonnet VII. 

P. 107, 1. 14. The hero of Homer. — Ulysses. See Odys- 
sey X and XII. 

P. 109, 1. 8. See Comus, 815-819. 

P. no, 1. 4. The forlorn hope. — Curiously enough the 
word "hope" in this connection is not at all related to the 
ordinary English word "hope;" "forlorn hope" is a borrow- 
ing of the Dutch "verloren hoop," meaning "lost band" (of 
troops) ; "hope" being related to "heap" (Old English 
"heap," a crowd). 

P. 110, 1. 26. "I struggle against opposition; nor does the 
force which conquers all else conquer me, but I move in an 
opposite direction to the circling world" (Ovid's Metamor- 
phoses, II, 72-73). The words are Apollo's. 

P. in, 1. 13. We had intended. — For a summary of 



248 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

critical opinions on Milton's prose style, see Clark's Study of 
English Prose Writers, pp. 30-49. 

P. 112, 1. 28. Boswellism. — Later on this became "Lues 
Boswelliana" (Essay on William Pitt) and "Furor Biograph- 
icus" (Essay on Hastings). 

P. 113, 1. 10. Massinger. — Philip Massinger (1583-1640) 
edited or wrote the once popular play, The Virgin Martyr. 
The best known of his plays, and one still occasionally acted, 
is A New Way to Pay Old Debts. 



ESSAY ON ADDISON. 



P. 117, 1. 15. Courteous knight.— Rogero, or Ruggiero, 
111 Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, XLV, 68. 

P. 118, 1. 15. Laputan flapper. — See Gulliver's Travels, 
Part III, Chap. 2. 

P. 118, 11. 29, 30. Theobald's. — Pronounced Tibbalds. 
Miss Aikin makes frequent mention of this famous country- 
seat of Elizabeth's prime minister, Lord Burleigh. Steen- 
kirks. — Loose flowing cravats worn by the English in Queen 
Anne's day to commemorate the disordered dress of the 
French when defeated by the English at the battle of Steen- 
kirk in 1692. 

P. 119, 11. 29, 30. Parnell's. — Rev. Thomas Parnell 
(1679-1717), an Irish poet and author of The Hermit; Re/. 
Hugh Blair (1718-1800), Professor of Belles-lettres at the 
University of Edinburgh, and author of a Rhetoric still used 
in many colleges. 

P. 120,- 1. 1. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). — The 
autocrat of eighteenth century literature, wrote a second-rate 
tragedy entitled Irene. 

P. 120, 1. 10. Button's. — Coffee-houses in Queen Anne's 
reign were literary centers. Button's was one of the most 
famous of these and was especially patronized by Addison 
and his friends. 

P. 121, 1. 17. Infanta Catharine. — The daughter of a 
Spanish or Portuguese sovereign is called "Infanta." The 
reference here is to Catharine of Braganza, a Portuguese 
princess, who married Charles II. 

P. 122, 1. 6. The Convocation of 1689. — It was called by 

249 



2SO JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

William III to consider means of bringing the Dissenters 
back into the Established Church. John Tillotson (1630- 
1694), Archbishop of Canterbury and a Low-Churchman, was 
the leader of the movement. 

P. 122, I. 12. Charterhouse. — This school and Westmin- 
ster held the same high rank in Addison's time that Eton, 
Harrow, and Rugby hold to-day. 

P. 123, 1. 2. Magdalen College. — Pronounced Maudlin. 

P. 123, 1. 10. Chancellor. — The notorious Judge Jeffreys 
(1648-1689). See Macaulay's History, Chap. VIII. 

P. 124, 1. 8. Demies. — This word, accented on the last 
syllable, is peculiar to Magdalen College, being employed for 
holders of undergraduate scholarships. 

P. 124, 1. 27. The Latin Poets. — Lucretius (96-55 B. C.) 
and Catullus (87?~54? B. C.) are the earliest Latin poets of 
note (except Plautus and Terence) whose works, to any 
large extent, have come down to us. Claudian and Pruden- 
tius, both of the fourth century A. D., represent the period 
of late Latin, a period of decline. 

P. 125, 1. 5. Buchanan. — George Buchanan (1506-1582), 
a writer of excellent Latin verses, was tutor to Mary Queen 
of Scots and to her son James I. 

P. 125, 1. 26. The Metamorphoses. — Ovid (43 B. C. - 17 
A. D. ) has here re-told the story of the numerous "transform- 
ations" that occurred among the characters of Greek myth- 
ology. It is his most popular work, ending with the death of 
Caesar and his metamorphosis into a star. 

P. 125, 11. 29, 30. Virgil. — P. Virgilius Maro (70-19 B. 
C.) the greatest of Latin poets and author of the national 
epic, the Mneid. Publius Statius (45-96 A. D.), court poet 
to Domitian and author of the Thebais. Claudian (about 
365-408 A. D.), a noted Latin poet, best known for his pane- 
gyrics. 

P. 126, 1. 6. Euripides. — See Notes on p. 55, 1. 28, and p. 
57. 1. 7 of Essay on Milton; for Theocritus, see Note on 
p. 74, 1, 2 of Essay on Milton. 



NOTES. 251 

P. 126, 11. 15, 16. Ausonius. — He and Maniuus are ob- 
scure Latin poets of the fourth and first centuries A. D. ; 
Cicero (106-43 B. C. ), perhaps the world's greatest orator, 
is here referred to as one of "the political and moral writers," 
with whose works Macaulay thinks that Addison was com- 
paratively unfamiliar. 

P. 126, 1. 23. Hannibal's army. — There is a smack of 
pedantry about Macaulay's strictures on Addison's quotations. 
It is true that the histories of Polybius (204-125 B. C.) and 
Livy (59 B. C. - 17 A. D.) are superior to the dry-as-dust 
Punica of Italicus (25-? A. D.) ; they are also far better 
known. And it was doubtless this reason — the commonplace- 
ness of a quotation from them— that led Addison to the 
Punica. The vicissitudes of Hannibal's army are related in 
all three. 

P. 126, 1. 27. The Rubicon. — This sentence is also hyper- 
critical. No one can doubt that Addison was familiar with 
Plutarch's Parallel Lives, or Caesar's Commentaries, or Cice- 
ro's Letters to Attieus. That he confined his citations to 
Lucan's Pharsalia should not be tortured into an argument to 
prove that he was ignorant of the most widely read prose 
writers of antiquity. 

P. 127, 1. 2. Lucan (39-65 A. D. ), a Latin poet, author 
of the Pharsalia, in ten books, an epic poem on the civil war 
between Caesar and Pompey. 

P. 127, 11. 5, 6. Pindar. — See Note on p. 56, 1. 10 of the 
Essay on Milton; Callimachus (about 260 B. C.) was an 
Alexandrian poet, critic, and grammarian, his Epigrams 
(seventy-three in number) being his most famous work; for 
the Attic Dramatists, see Note on p. 55, 1. 28 of the Essay 
on Milton. 

P. 127, 11. 7, 8. Horace. — Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65- 
8 B. C), the friend of Virgil and Maecenas, and the greatest 
lyric poet of the Latin race; Juvenal (60-140 A. D.), the 
great Roman satirist; for Statius, see Note on p. 125, 1. 30; 
for Ovid, see Note on p. 125, 1. 26. 



252 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 127, 1. g. Medals. — This word in Addison's time meant 
coins. 

P. 127, I. 30. The Cock Lane ghost. — In 1772 a house in 
Cock Lane, near London, was said to be haunted by "a lumi- 
nous lady," even Dr. Johnson being caught by the hoax. 

P. 128, 11. 1, 2, 3, 4. William Henry Ireland, imitating 
the handwriting of Shakespeare, wrote in 1795, at the age of 
seventeen, a play entitled Vortigern and Rowena, the forgery 
deceiving even Sheridan and Kemble. The Thundering 
Legion is the name given to a traditional legion of Christians 
serving under Marcus Aurelius, their prayers having brought 
on a greatly desired thunder-storm. Tiberius, under whom 
the Crucifixion took place, is reported by Tertullian (150 ?- 
230 ? A. D.) to have been converted and to have thus sought 
to atone for his crime. The letter of Abgarus to Christ, 
asking the Master to come and heal him, is given in full by 
Eusebius (264 ?-349 ? A. D. ), as also Christ's reply, but 
neither is authentic. 

P. 128, 1. 12. Herodotus. — See Note on p. 56, 1. 4, of 
Essay on Milton. 

P. 128, 1. 22. Confounded an aphorism with an apoth- 
egm. — This is amusing; but the laugh is on Macaulay, who 
did not know that when Blackmore (1650-1729) wrote, these 
two words were often and with entire correctness used inter- 
changeably. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, was the first 
to bring this charge against Blackmore. Indeed, Macaulay 
seems to have obtained much of the material for this essay 
from Johnson's Lives. 

P. 129, 1. 1. Bentley. — Richard Bentley (1662-1742), the 
profoundest philologian that England has produced. "Ho 
wanted only modesty," says Bishop Stillingfleet, "to be the 
most remarkable person in Europe." His greatest work, 
Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, not only proved con- 
clusively that the Epistles, which passed under the name oT 
Phalaris, a tyrant in Sicily (about 570 to 549 B. C), were 
spurious, but changed the whole method of philological in- 



NOTES. 253 

vestigation in England. Charles Boyle had published 111 1695 
a Latin translation of the Epistles of Phalaris. Sir William 
Temple in an essay on Ancient and Modern Learning had 
contended for the genuineness of the Epistles, and a whole 
storm of critical controversy had arisen, to be definitely 
allayed by Bentley's masterful scholarship. It was this con- 
troversy that called forth Swift's Battle of the Books. 

P. 130, 1. 6. The lines occur in Addison's Proelium inter 
Pygmaeos et Grues Coinmissnm, but Macaulay has written 
e.vsurgit where Addison wrote assurgit (see Virgil's Georg- 
ics> 3, 355 L Literally translated the lines read, "And now 
between the battle lines strides the lofty leader of the Pyg- 
mies, who, terrible in his majesty and solemn in step, over- 
tops all the rest with his gigantic bulk and towers to the 
height of one's elbow." 

P. 131, 1. 2. The Newdigate prize. — This prize is given 
at Oxford, as the Seatonian at Cambridge, for the best origi- 
nal English poem. 

P. 131, 1. 3. The heroic couplet. — This verse-measure 
consists of two ten-syllabled lines with end-rime. It is 
Chaucer's mete r in the Canterbury Tales; but the heroic 
couplet of the Queen Anne age is lifeless and mechanical as 
compared with Chaucer's. 

P. I3_\ 1. 6. The TLneid. — Virgil figures in Jonson's Poet- 
aster. These lines occur in the Poetaster, and are a transla- 
tion of the Mncid, IV, 178-183. 

P. 133, 11. 4, 5. Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, 
were lesser poets of this time and reign. See Johnson's Lives 
of the Poets. For Walsh see also Ward's English Poets, 
Vol. III. 

P. 133, 1. 23. "After his bees." — Virgil's fourth Gcorgic 
treats of the management and habits of bees. 

P. 134, 1. 11. Dorset or Rochester. — The Earls of Dorset 
(1637-1706) and Rochester (1647-1680) were successful 
song-writers of the Restoration period. See Ward's English 
Poets, Vol. II. 



254 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 134, 1. 14. Rasselas. — The hero of Johnson's romance, 
Rasselas, Prime of Abyssinia (1759). He lived in a Happy 
Valley, hut hoped to find in a flying-machine a means of 
escape. 

P. 135, 1. 6. Lord Chancellor Somers. — This great law- 
yer and Whig statesman extended his patronage to John 
Locke (1632-1704) as well as to Addison. The latter dedi- 
cated his Travels in Italy to him, and paid grateful trihute to 
his worth in The Freeholder, No. 39. 

P. 135, 1. 29. The men of letters. — Among them may be 
mentioned Thiers, Casimir Perier, Guizot, and Chateau- 
briand. 

P. 137, 1. 29. The Kit-Cat Club. — This famous club, 
founded in 1703, was the resort of the more notable wits and 
politicians of the Whig parly. Addison says (in the Specta- 
tor, No. 9) that the name was derived from the pies, which 
were called "kit-cats," but the ultimate derivation is uncertain. 
The lines that Addison engraved on his glass were — 

" While haughty Gallia's dames, that spread 
O'er their pale cheeks an artful red, 
Beheld this beauteous stranger there, 
In native charms divinely fair; 
Confusion in their looks they showed, 
And with unborrowed blushes glowed." 

P. 138, 1. 11. Athanasian mysteries. — Macaulay means 
nothing more than that Dacier (1651-1722), a convert in 1685 
to Catholicism, was trying to find in the works of Plato some 
hint or confirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity. See Note 
on p. 41, 1. 21 of Essay 011 Milton. 

P. 139, 1. 13. Malebranche. — A noted metaphysician, 
author in 1674 of an epoch-making work entitled Search for 
Truth. Nicholas Boileau (1636-1711), a distinguished 
French critic, whose Poetic Art, published also in 1674, re- 
mained the standard work on the subject until about the 
year 1800. 

P. 130. 1. 17. Leviathan. — So named because Hobbes 



NOTES. 



255 



(1588-1679) attempts therein to show that the rights of the 
individual are swallowed up in the State as the leviathan 
swallows other animals. 

P. 140, 11. 4-9. Sir Joshua. — Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723- 
1792), the best of English portrait painters, and the friend of 
Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burke; Mrs. Thrale (1741-1821), 
wife of a wealthy London brewer, at whose home Johnson 
frequently visited; Wieland (1733-1813), a German poet 
and professor, the author of Oberon; Lessing (1729-1781), 
the greatest of German critics, author, among many other 
works, of Laocoon, or the Limits of Painting and Poetry; 
Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's most popular political 
satire. 

P. 141, I. 12. Pollio. — C. Asinius Pollio (76 B. C. -6 
A. D.), soldier and patron of letters, comments on Livy's 
"Patavinity," or that quality in his style that smacks of Pata- 
vium or Padua, where Livy was born. 

P. 141, 11. 16, 17. Frederick the Great (1712-1786), 
King of Prussia (1740-1786), affected both the French lan- 
guage and French literature, and despised German as a bar- 
barous speech, not realizing that in his own reign Lessing, 
Wieland, Herder, Goethe, and others, were laying the founda- 
tions for a great national German literature. 

P. 141, 11. 25, 26. Erasmus. — Desiderius Erasmus (1467 ? 
_I 536), the famous Dutch scholar, satirist, letter-writer, and 
translator. Fracastorius (1483-1553), a noted Italian phy- 
sician and poet. Dr. William Robertson (1721-1793), a 
Scotch historian, best known by his History of Charles V. 

P. 142, 11. 2, 3. Alcaics of Gray.— For a more modern 
English example of alcaics, see Tennyson's lines on Milton; 
the elegiacs of Vincent Bourne (1695-1747) followed the 
classical models of elegiac verse and consisted of unrimed 
couplets, containing a hexameter line followed by a penta- 
meter line. 

P. 142, 1. 10. "Do not think, however, that T mean by 
this to condemn the Latin verses of one of your distinguished 



256 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

academicians which you sent mc. I found them very beau- 
tiful, and worthy of Vida and Sannazaro, but not of Horace 
and Virgil." 

P. 142, 1. 25. "Why do you bid me, O Muse, again to 
stammer in Latin verse, me the son of a Sigambrian father 
and born far this side of the Alps?" 

P. 142, 1. 28. "Puppet Shows, and The Crane-Pigmy 
Battle." 

P. 145, 1. 22. A valuable hint. — The question is not to 
be disposed of in this off-hand way. Tickell, one of Addison's 
nearest friends, says: "He took up a design of writing upon 
this subject when he was at the University, and even at- 
tempted something in it there, though not a line as it now 
stands." This Venetian opera, therefore, can hardly have 
suggested to Addison "the thought of bringing Cato on the 
English stage." 

P. 147, 1. 6. To assist at. — This expression, in the sense 
of to be present at, was used frequently by the Queen Anne 
writers ; but it is a French idiom and has not been thoroughly 
naturalized in English. 

P. 147, 11. 24, 25. Salvator. — Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), 
painter, musician, and satirical poet, is best known by his 
Conspiracy of Catiline, one of the art treasures of the Pitti 
Palace, Florence; Vico (1668-1744), Professor of Rhetoric 
in the University of Naples at the time of Addison's visit to 
Italy. 

P. 150, 1. 2. The events here mentioned took place in the 
beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). 
In 1700 Charles II, king of Spain, died, leaving his crown 
to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV. This meant 
the consolidation of Spain and France. "There are no longer 
any Pyrenees," said Louis. A Grand Alliance was formed 
against the House of Bourbon, and some of the most mem- 
orable battles in European history — Blenheim, Ramillies, 
Oudenarde, and Malplaquet — were fought. They were vic- 
tories for the allied forces, and were won chiefly by the genius 



NOTES. 257 

of the Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill), the leader 
of the English forces, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the Austrian forces. 

P. 150, 1. 30. Between the death of Dryden. — Dryden 
died in 1700; Pope's Essay on Criticism was published in 1711. 

P. 151, 1. 3. Parnell. — See Note on p. 119, 1. 29. Mat- 
thew Prior (1664-1721), a Tory poet and satirist. 

P. 151, 1. 25. Death of William the Third. — In March, 
1702. 

P. 152, 1. 1. Privy Council. — They were selected by the 
sovereign as advisers, and were responsible only to him. 
They have been virtually superseded by the Cabinet, which is 
responsible to Parliament. 

P. 153, 1. 4. Godolphin. . . . Marlborough. — These 
two men were the most influential leaders in English politics 
from 1702 to the Tory victory of 1710. Godolphin managed 
affairs at home and, as Treasurer, raised the funds necessary 
for the military operations of Marlborough on the continent. 

P. 154, 11. 8-1 1. Mr. Canning. — George Canning (1770- 
1827) was a Tory, but so liberal as to act with the Whigs in 
many of their more important reforms; Lord Eldon (1751— 
1838), a member of the same cabinet, was bitterly opposed to 
reform. When Canning became Prime Minister (1827) he 
had Whigs in his cabinet. 

P. 154, 1. 28. Act of Settlement. — Had Louis XIV been 
victorious he would have restored the line of the Stuarts to 
the English throne, and thus have annulled the act of Parlia- 
ment, which settled the English crown on the House of 
Hanover. 

P. 158, 1. 12. Scamander. — See Iliad, XXI. 

P. 159, 1. 4. Silius Italicus. — See Note on p. 126, 1. 23. 

P. 160, 1. 19. The famous comparison. — The lines are — 

" So when an angel by divine command 
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, 
Such as of late o'er fair Britannia passed, 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
And, pleased the Almightv 's orders to perform, 
Rides in the whirlwind, nnd direrts the storm." 



258 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

P. 161, 1. 21. Victor Amadeus. — Duke of Savoy and first 
king of Sardinia. See p. 150, I. 4. 

P. 161, 1. 28. Empress Faustina.- — Wife of the Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A. D.), and a woman of shameless 
immorality. 

P. 162, 1. 17. These names are the glories of Italian litera- 
ture. For a sketch of the life and works of each, see Garnett's 
History of Italian Literature (1898). 

P. 162, 1. 25. Santa Croce. — One of the most famous 
churches in the world. In it are buried Dante, Michael An- 
gelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. 

P. 162, 11,. 27, 28. Byron speaks of "The Specter Hunts- 
man of Onesti's line" (Don Juan, III, 106). This story was 
given currency by Boccaccio (Decameron, Day 5). For the 
pathetic story of Francesca da Rimini, see Dante's Inferno, 
V; Mr. Stephen Phillips, a contemporary English poet, has 
just written a tragedy, Paolo and Francesca (1900), based 
upon this episode. 

P. 163, 1. 3. Filicaja. — "If only his scrolls smelt less of 
the lamp he might deserve Macaulay's exaggerated praise as 
the greatest lyrist of modern times, supposing this expression 
to denote the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." (Gar- 
nett, History of Italian Literature, p. 283). 

P. 163, 1. 21. Rowe. — Nicholas Rowe (1673-1718), an in- 
significant Poet-Laureate, is best known as the first biog- 
rapher of Shakespeare (1709). See Dowden's Introduction 
to Shakespeare, pp. 92, 93. 

P. 163, 1, 25. Doctor Arne. — Thomas Augustine Arne 
(1710-1778), a once popular song writer, and composer of the 
music for Rule Britannia. 

P. 164, 1. 11. Electoral Prince of Hanover.— This was 
the future George I. 

P. 164, 1. 17. Earl of Sunderland. — He belonged to the 
famous Whig "Junto," which included also Somers, Halifax, 
Oxford, and Wharton. 

P. 164, 1. 21. Harley. — Robert Harley (1661-1724), first 



NOTES. 259 

Earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John (1678-1751) became the 
two acknowledged leaders of the Tories as soon as Godolphin 
and Marlborough, in 1708, left the Tory party and declared 
themselves Whigs. 

P. 165, 1. 1. Sacheverell. — Henry Sacheverell (1672- 
1724), pronounced sa-shev-cr-cl, a Tory clergyman, was 
prosecuted at the instigation of Godolphin for two sermons 
criticizing the Whig ministry, and suspended for three years. 
It was a very unpopular measure, and in 1713 Sacheverell was 
reinstated by a Tory ministry. 

P. 166, 1. 14. Conduct of the Allies. — This pamphlet 
was written by Dean Swift in the interest of Harley and the 
Tories. 

P. 167, 1. 11. Grub Street. — The abode of "small authors" 
and impecunious hack-writers. 

P. 169, 1. 4. Mary Montagu. — At the age of eight she 
was the toast of the Kit-Cat Club. Later in life she intro- 
duced into England the practice of inoculation ("ingrafting") 
for the small-pox, but she is best known as a witty letter- 
writer and a correspondent of Pope. 

P. 169. 1. 10. Stella. — This was the name given by Swift 
to Esther Johnson (1684-1727), with whom he maintained an 
intimate and for three years a daily correspondence. The 
evidence that they were secretly married is not conclusive. 

P. 169. 1. 15. Terence. — Publius Terentius Afer (185 ?- 
159? B. C.) and Caius Valerius Catullus (87? -54? 
B. C. ) differ greatly in style. Steele had Terence in mind 
for conversation "the most polite," and Catullus for conversa- 
tion "the most mirthful" ; but the terms are somewhat 
loosely applied. The vivacity of Catullus is only one feature 
of a many-sided style that, but for the lack of a lofty ideal, 
would have placed its possessor at the head of all the Latin 
poets. See Note on p. 124, 1. 27. 

P. 169, 1. 18. Young. — Edward Young (1681-1765) wrote 
the once popular poem Night Thoughts. 

P. 169, 1. 27, One habit.— This is a good illustration of 



260 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Macaulay's tendency to exaggerate. The only authority that 
he had for the ascription of this "habit" to Addison is con- 
tained in these words of Swift : "Whether from easiness in 
general, or from her [Esther Johnson's] indifference to per- 
sons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same 
practice which she most liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot deter- 
mine ; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a 
wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it 
than to oppose them. It prevented noise, she said, and saved 
time." Is there any suggestion here of "luring the flattered 
coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity" ? 

P. 171, 1. 28. Hurd.— Richard Hurd, D. D. (1720-1808), 
Bishop of Worcester, edited the best edition of Addison's 
works, and wrote also a eulogistic biography of Bishop War- 
burton (1698-1779). 

P. 172, 1. 18. Last lines. — These words were found on 
Budgell's desk : 

" What Cato did and Addison approved 
Cannot be wrong." 

P. 172, 1. 24. A species of composition. — These were his 
charming odes to children, which, while a source of ridicule 
in his own day and obtaining the nick.iame recorded in the 
text, are now universally admired, and constitute Phillips's 
real claim to fame. See Ward's English Poets, Vol, III. or 
Palgrave's Golden Treasury. 

P. 174, 1. 29. Twelve Gesars. — Coins or medals with the 
impress of the twelve Caesars, in the collection of which Ad- 
dison was much interested. 

P. 174, 1. 30. Bayle's Dictionary. — Pierre Bayle (1647- 
1706), a noted French philosopher and critic, who was an 
influential leader of the modern critical and skeptical move- 
ment. His famous Dictionary, in which these tendencies 
find expression, appeared in 1696. 

P. 175, 1. 16. The rival bulls in Virgil. — See Georgics, 
III, 220-225. 



NOTES. 261 

P. 176, 1. 20. Gerard Hamilton. — He made a brilliant 
speech in 1755 and remained silent the rest of his life. He 
was known as "Single-speech Hamilton." 

P. 177, 1. 18. Gazetteer. — Editor of the Gazette, the offi- 
cial publication of the government. It appears now twice a 
week. 

P. 177. 1. 26. The Tuesdays. — This use of the definite 
article before the days of the week dates from the period of 
Old English (449-1150 A. D.), but is now obsolete or em- 
ployed to give a colloquial flavor to the style. In the Queen 
Anne age the syntactic difference between "the Tuesday" 
and "Tuesday" was about the difference between "the sum- 
mer" and "summer." Compare, for example, "The summer 
is the best time for picnics" and "Summer is the best time 
for picnics." The presence of the article shows that the idea 
of periodical recurrence is prominent. See the same con- 
struction, p. 166, 1. 20, and p 194, 11. 2-y. 

P. 177, 1. 29. Will's and . . . the Grecian. — Two 
popular coffee-houses of the period. 

P. 178, 1. 21. Mr. Paul Pry.— John Poole (1786-1879) 
wrote a play of this name, his most popular work, which was 
produced at the Haymarket Theater in 1825. 

P. 180, 1. 1. Half German Jargon. — A fling at Car- 
lyle. 

P. 180, 1. 6. Menander. — An Athenian comic writer of 
the fourth century B. C, whose works have survived only in 
fragments. 

P. 180, 1. 8. Cowley. — See Note on p. 41, 1. 8 of Essay on 
Milton. Samuel Butler (1612-1680) was the author of 
Hudibras, a heroic-comic poem satirizing Puritanism. 

P. 180, 1. 10. Sir Godfrey Kneller. — A German artist 
who painted many portraits of his fellow-members of the Kit- 
Cat Club. 

P. 180, 1. 28. Cervantes. — Miguel de Cervantes Saave- 
dra (1547-1616), the author of the one Spanish book, Don 
Quixote, that has found acceptance all the world over. In 



262 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

this romance the high-minded, but half-witted knight, Don 
Quixote, his brain crazed with the reading of too many exag- 
gerated works of Chivalry, sallies forth with his gross-minded 
servant, Sancho Panza, as companion, and both meet with 
many entertaining adventures. It was such romances as the 
Amadis of Gaul (see Note to p. 63, I. 21 of Essay on Milton) 
that Cervantes wished to satirize. 

P. 182, 1. 17. Arbuthnot's satirical works. He is best 
known by his History of John Bull (1712), from which 
originated this now universal name for Englishmen. 

P. 182, 1. 23. These are eighteenth century periodicals. 

P. 184, 11. 7, 8. Bettesworth. — He was satirized by 
Swift. Franc de Pompignan, by Voltaire. 

P. 184, 11. 19-21. Jeremy Collier. — In 1698 he published 
his Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage, a 
vigorous and successful appeal for a purer drama in England. 
There were no two worse offenders than Sir George Etiier- 
ege (1636 ?- 1690 ?) and William Wycherley (1640?- 
I7I5)- 

P. 184, 11. 28-30. Hale.— Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), 
a noted Chief Justice of England and author of Contempla- 
tions Moral and Divine; John Tillotson (1630-1694), Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and a prolific writer ; William Con- 
greve (1670-1729), "the wittiest of the playwrights of the 
modern world" (Gosse) ; Captain John Vanbrugh (1672- 
1726), a coarse but clever dramatist, who showed great bit- 
terness in his controversy with Collier. 

P. 185, 1. 23. Smalridge's sermons. — George Smalridge, 
D. D. (1666-1719), Bishop of Bristol, and a noted scholar 
of Addison's time, was the author of a series of sermons that 
served as a popular devotional book during the Queen Anne 
age. 

P. 187, 11. 1, 2. Versailles and Marli. — The seats of 
two magnificent French palaces belonging to Louis XIV. 
The Pretender. — The supposed son of James II, whose claim 
to the English throne was backed by Louis XIV. St. 



NOTES. 263 

James's. — A palace in London built by Henry VIII, and the 
residence of the English sovereigns for many years. 

P. 188, 1. 12. Walcheren. — During the Napoleonic wars 
England sent (in 1809) a futile expedition against this 
Dutch island. 

,P. 188, 1. 2i. A great lady. — The Countess Dowager of 
Warwick, whom Addison afterwards married. 

P. 190, 1. 19. Isaac Bickerstaff. — See p. 178, 11. 20-24. 

P. 192, 11. 12, 13. Richardson. — Samuel Richardson 
(1689-1781), the author in 1740 of Pamela or Virtue Re- 
warded, is regarded as "the father of the English novel" ; 
Henry Fielding (1707-1754), the author of Tom Jones, and 
a greater genius than Fielding, began his novel, Joseph An- 
drews, as a satire on Richardson's Pamela; Tobias Smollett 
(1721-1771), a Scotchman and the author of the three novels, 
Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, 
was inferior in talent to his two contemporaries. 

P. 192, 1. 25. The Distressed Mother was a tragedy by 
Ambrose Philips (see p. 172) adapted from Racine's An- 
dromaquc and produced in 1712. 

P. 193, 1. 29. Lucian (120-200 A. D.) was "a celebrated 
Greek satirist and humorist." In his Auction "the gods 
knock down each of the great thinkers to the highest bidder." 

P. 194, 1. 1. Scheherezade. — The story-teller in The 
Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 

P. 194, 1. 3. La Bruyere. — Jean de La Bruyere (1645- 
1696), a French writer on men and morals, his greatest work 
being Les Caractercs. 

P. 194, 1. 9. Massillon. — Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663- 
1742), a great pulpit orator of France, of whom Louis XIV 
said, "Other preachers make me pleased with them, but Mas- 
sillon makes me displeased with myself." 

P. 195, 1. 4. "Chevy Chase." — The most famous of the 
English and Scotch ballads. It recounts the battle of Otter- 
burn fought during the reign of Richard II between Low- 
landers and Highlanders in the Cheviot Hills. Both leaders 



264 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

fell, the English Earl Percy and the Scotch Lord Douglas. 
See any good collection of Ballads, as Percy's Reliques of 
Ancient English Poesy, or Child's English and Scottish 
Ballads. 

P. 197, 1. 18. Mr. Macready. — William Macready (1793- 
1873), manager of Drury Lane Theater, and the most popular 
English actor when the Essay on Addison was written. 

P. 197, 1. 23. Booth. — Barton Booth (1681-1733), a 
noted actor of the time. He made the hit of his life by his 
impersonation of Cato in Addison's play. 

P. 197, 1. 30. Warm men. — The expression is a colloquial 
one for "well to do men," "men in comfortable circum- 
stances." 

P. 198, 1. 14. The October. — A club composed of extreme 
Tories. 

P. 198, 1. 25. Sir Gibby. — Sir Gilbert Heathcote. 

P. 200, 11. 14-15. "Athalie." — A drama by the French 
writer, Jean Racine (1639-1699). "Saul." — The most popu- 
lar play of the greatest Italian dramatist, Vittorio Alfieri 
(1749-1803). "Cinna." — Generally considered the master- 
piece of its author, the French dramatist, Pierre Corneille 
(1606-1684). 

P. 202, 1. 29. Peripetia. — The modern equivalent is de- 
nouement. 

P. 208, 1. 25. Iliad, VI, 226-229. The lines describe the 
agreement entered into by Trojan Glaucus and Greek Diomed 
when they learned in battle that their fathers had been 
friends, Diomed being the spokesman. Pope's version is — 

" Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 
In the firll harness of yon ample field ; 
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore ; 
But thou and Diomed be foes no m re." 

P. 210, 1. 27. Squire Western. — A leading character in 
Fielding's novel, Tom Jones. 

P. 217, 11. 16, 17. The Satirist and the Age were two 
scandal-mongering sheets of Macaulay's time, the editor of 



NOTES. 265 

the Age being sent to prison for libel shortly after Macaulay 
wrote. 

P. 220, 1. 17. Sir Peter Teazle. — He and Mr. Joseph 
Surface are characters in Sheridan's play, School for Scan- 
dal. 

P. 223, 1. 16. Lord Townshend. — Charles Townshend 
(1674-1738), a statesman of unsullied integrity, began his 
political life as a Tory, but became later a leader of the 
Whigs. 

P. 224, 1. 14. Joseph Hume. — A Scotch contemporary of 
Macaulay who distinguished himself while in Parliament as a 
pioneer of commercial, financial, and parliamentary reform. 

P. 228, 1. 22. The "Duenna." — A popular comedy writ- 
ten by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) in 1775. 

P. 228, 1. 29. Henry Norris. — In the first edition of his 
Essay Macaulay had not been able to find out who "little 
Dicky" was, but he had critical sagacity enough to feel sure 
that the allusion was not to Steele. "Little Dicky," so runs 
the first edition, "was evidently the nickname of some comic 
actor who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, 
in Dryden's Spanish Friar." 

P. 229, 1. 23. Gay. — John Gay (1685-1732), although 
well-known to students of eighteenth century literature as a 
poet and writer of fables, is popularly remembered rather 
by his epitaph in Westminster Abbey : 

" Life is a jest, and all things show it ; 
I thought so once, but now I know it." 

P. 231, 1. 20. This summary of the twenty-third Psalm is 
in wretched taste. 

P. 231, 1. 29. Jerusalem Chamber. — A famous room in 
Westminster Abbey built in 1376 and hung with tapestry illus- 
trating scenes in the history of Jerusalem. 



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